Disclaimer: I probably should not be writing about this subject matter, because I have already alienated myself from friends and family. One family member, I hear, is highly offended by one of my articles I’ve written recently and has said so to other members of our family. So what am I supposed to do? Not write? Yeah. Right.
On Saturday morning, while recovering from the heat of the day and the exhaustion from my morning fencing class, one of my aunts called me on three-way with my mother, asking me if I knew if one of my cousins was pregnant. The question kind-of blindsided me because I had just IM-ed my cousin a few days earlier, trying to set up a time when our daughters could play together. Was the pregnancy a secret? According to my aunt it wasn’t. We discussed the fact that she moved to the same city as me and didn’t bother telling me that either. Had I unknowingly wronged her?
I’m living in my own personal episode of the Twilight Zone, because I don’t know how a woman who introduces me to her circle of friends as her sister-like cousin can just move into my city after all we've been through, and she totally ignores me. Wait. Yes I can. After giving this mornings conversation time to simmer in my mind’s juices, I suppose what my dear cousin is doing, is not all that different from what we, as people - as narcissistic human beings – do all the time.
Tell me if this sounds familiar. Your phone rings, you look at your caller ID and it’s your grandmother, who likes to talk your ear off, and repeat herself after every third sentence, and though you love the heck out of her, you are a bit busy and quite honestly, simply don’t want to be bothered with her boring conversation. So what do you do? Nothing. You don’t pick up the phone – let it roll into voice mail, and vow to yourself to call her back at another time when you have a bit more free time to burn.
Or here’s another one. We fly out to meet up with friends in the same city our uncle resides, but we only have two days in town and so neglect to even call our uncle to let him know we’re around for fear he’ll want to catch up and soak up what little time we have there.
It’s sort of like how my grandmother got upset with me when she found out I flew out to New York but didn’t come to visit her in Savannah, GEORGIA. Now how close is Savannah to Manhattan? I’ll tell you! It’s about 815 miles! I thought my grandmother was being ridiculous, but in her mind, she was only 13 hours away – and I hadn’t even tried.
At first I thought that we as human beings sometimes lack the discipline to do what’s right. But I had to rethink that. Because was it really wrong for my cousin to not tell me that she moved 10 minutes away from me when previously she was an hour away? Was it wrong for her to not let me know that she was expecting, leaving me to find out from my loud talking mother and aunt? Perhaps it was insensitive, but not necessarily wrong. It’s sort of like when a guy says , “Yes” when his girlfriend asks him if her pants make her butt look big.
We all know there are reasons for all of our decisions we make, even when we’re not aware of them. Like there was a reason my father cheated on my mother - and there isn’t a doubt in my mind that the reason is much deeper than an explanation he has provided for me and my brother. And it is no secret that my cousin who will soon have her third baby has chosen to leave me and many of my other family members out of the loop.
I’m not writing all of this to show you how dysfunctional my family is. Really I’m not. I love them to pieces and wouldn’t be who I am without ‘em. All I’m trying to illustrate here, is that no matter how upset one of their actions has made me (assuming they have not caused any physical harm to anyone), I have to stop for a second and realize there is a reason behind every word, every action, every non-action. And since they are my blood, I can’t look at them without looking at myself. My prickly approach to honesty. My quiet mystique. The vibes that I give off to attract certain people. My giving (to a fault) nature. My workaholism. It all comes from some place for some reason. And when I think of this, my shoulders fall away from my ears, and my breath deepens because any anger or anxiety falls away like sunburned skin.
There is a reason that so many married people can be found on Myspace, and some of their intentions are as innocent as peanut butter and crackers, but they are not all there to locate high school chums. Even if people never meet, emotional affairs can be just as devastating to a relationship as physical ones. Yet there is a reason that people seek them out. Even if a person ends the e-connection, the need or thirst, or whatever is still there and will plague folks until they do their own soul-searching.
By the way, I’m not justifying anything folks do, just because there’s a reason attached to it, but I do have a recommendation: the next time your grandmother calls, pick up the freaking phone!
Rogue Tantrums
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