The transformations marked by events push our thoughts and contemplation into the mode that we, as humans, find difficult to face – our own mortality – loss and grief – and all that comes with. Some if this is anticipating future loss – what that would be like for us – and until we face these, we really don’t know.
The uncertainty that these changes in our relationships introduce is what we have a difficult time facing. We must deal with the stress, distress, growth cycle as we go through the mental processing to get through the emotions without becoming chronically depressed and bogged down.
Someone dear passes away suddenly. Someone else dear has a major illness which causes a major change in their lives. The collisions of trying to plan life milestone happy occasions around the changes in an important family relationship impacting everything else. Losing a beloved pet.
Facing holidays when the normal is not there any more.
Trying to resolve and adjust to long term events that have caused everything to undergo change. Let’s face it, if we lived under the assumption that the joyous time of winter holidays (or summer if you live down under), would always be the fun observation of traditions long held – we literally are living in some sort of fantasy land.
What we have done is try to create new experiences. Invite people to come together to celebrate in groups where people either do not know one another or are not all related. Try to bring joy to others who would potentially be going through the holiday alone. It is not that we couldn’t celebrate our holiday all by ourselves, it is that holidays are meant to be shared.
Family
As for family changes, those are always ongoing. That is life. Your perception is not their perception. Their priorities are often very different and may not include you in them. As I have learned, being an “only”, without siblings, the distant nature of my relationship to others in my family constellation is often influenced by things that I do not understand. These may be unintended and likely are.
I reflect on happy times when we were included in family gatherings. Thinking back, I wonder if that was more because my mom or grandmother had the catalytic relationship with everyone else? Once they have departed, those relationship links eroded and have taken effort to maintain. I have tried to form these or re-form them. It just seems that there is no desire and it takes two to make a relationship. These are not just a given.
It’s not just the holidays
Communication is difficult. De-prioritized, I think. “I’m zoomed out” “I’m sorry I didn’t respond to you earlier” (earlier was possibly months ago). Short replies designed to cool the conversation. No reply at all. Try calling. No answer. Leave a message. No reply. Some have more manners than others. Some at least say, “I’m busy, I’ll get back to you” Some never do after that. What is the message? You do not rank up on the list of people that they wish to interact with on a regular basis.
And it seems that there is a circle and my immediate family of three adults and a grandchild are not in it. As I get older, I think, “why do I continue to try?” Nobody cares, and I guess I should abandon caring. It will never be known to me whether I caused something to break, or if it, like lots of things, just deteriorates on its own and fades away.
The artist and musician, Neil Young, has written so much about this. I think he has studied this since he was quite early in his career. What aging does to individuals and families is all a part of life, but because there are parts of this that are very unpleasant, we move through those until we get through them, at times on tiptoes, sometimes tripping and falling, sometimes through thick snow in heavy boots until the cold darkness passes. Whichever situation comes along, much of this is mental and emotional and there is no instruction manual for how to do this. I have also learned that the dynamic of age, and individual event dynamics, the people involved and such, for those it changes how we deal with getting through losses and recovering back to some sort of equilibrium.
Families in the ideal, should support one another through these times. A lot of the time you hear the bad stories where this doesn’t happen. In my family, I suspect we are average. Maybe about a 4.5 on the scale of 1-10.
Back to communication issues – it’s true that this is the number one problem with humans. They do not do communication well.
The question is whether I should continue to try to reach out, or should I just stop trying and see what happens.
Thanksgiving was one of the “try and see” times, and a few people did reach out – I actually did not intentionally not reach out, it was that I was flat-out working to prepare for guests so that we could give them a wonderful experience – as much as we could.
So, it leaves me with a conundrum. Major decisions to make. Some of this does affect my day to day and it is very important that I do keep connections and do keep trying to communicate with certain of these people who are my family. Others, not so much, I guess. I love them. They are my family. I must face the reality that the feelings are not mutual. That’s it.
