Somewhere In Between
It’s late. I should be sleeping… But my mind is swirling. Like a broken record, thoughts just keep resurfacing. This world has sadness. This world has chaos. After sin entered the world it was never to be easy for anyone again. But sometimes I really wonder why things turn out the way they do. Why some people are born into the right family at the right time and given tons of support and meaningful conversation. While others are born into cruel, violent, unloving ones that live each day leaving nothing but destruction in their wake. I am somewhere in between… Albeit, that’s a BIG in between. But life is full of grey areas. Normal really can’t be completely defined. Life is fluid and while some things are normal in a situation there are variables that throw the whole thing off balance. I know, I am not telling anyone, and mostly myself, anything new here.
But I want to talk about my “in between.” My suburban, middle-class family that lands somewhere in the middle of harmony and chaos. The family I was born into tried its best with what they had. My parents did what they could at the time to raise and rear five very different children. And five very different people we are. There were rebellious ones. Goody-goodies. Ones with higher educations. Others who had settled with choices that had serious life long consequences. But in the end we have each become successful in our own right. But back then we had our share of problems… But we never got too close. We never really shared our hearts. And we never really learned what a relationship that is supportive, kind, and constant looked liked. And we are all splintered because of it. I was born into a family of people just trying to get by. They all are like that. We don’t strive for excessive success. We don’t have giganic expectations of ourselves. And we use that same thinking in our relationships with each other it seems.
But there is this little girl in me. The one who walks through that house of unspoken, and maybe even to them unrecognized, division and feels neglected. It was just who we were. And she looks up at all these people and wonders why there was never time to share our hearts. Why there is hardly ever a phone call… a text… an email even now all these years later. We are like these ships in oceans so far apart its like nothing else is out there but each of us alone. Alone. It is sad for me. It is what my heart longs for. And unless we send out a distress signal, an SOS if you will, ain’t no one gonna come lookin’ for ya.
See I have this erie feeling… One day the glue that is our parents will no longer be what holds us together. They will be gone we will be left with our splintered, unattached selves and then we will become those siblings who simply just catch up every few months… instead of once or twice a year which is what it is now in some cases. And that would be an improvement. But I want more. I want them to walk with me today… and every day. I want them share in my joy or pain. And I in theirs. But I am mostly sad because I am probably the only one who really needs this. And as the fourth born I resent the older three for not seeing this need. My younger brother, while different from the others, and the one I could most easily trust my heart with, does make some effort but nothing comes naturally easy as far as consistent communication. And maybe he resents me for not being a better big sister. Although, I did try. In high school and college I would take him out with me I tried to make who we were different than who the others were, but somewhere it was all lost. Somewhere in the roll and rhythm of daily life we lost what we had. Maybe its my fault. But I miss it. He lives so far away from me now. All the way out in California. So far and so costly. And lately, I have just wanted to hug him. Share my life with him and his sweet wife. And become a regular part of his.
So, I sit now in a mess of wet, waded up tissues wondering how you make a family that barely knows each other become close. I used to think that my friends could be like family to me. And sometimes they are. But its just not the same. Nothing is thicker than blood. And when you know that your family loves each other, but never takes the time to really know each other, you end up feeling lost inside. You end up feeling incomplete… so deeply. And what I want may never be attainable. But I want to become a new person in this area. I want this part of the puzzel to fit into place to fill this gaping sadness that sometime engulfs me. I want to take this one challenge, the greatest of our lives, and be excessively driven to see it happen. But life is fluid and my brain may be the “fluidest” thing around. Things are always swishing around up there. I can say this with complete honesty because a lot of the time I get side-tracked from a task, which is so like my mom. But what can I do? Right now I am so in touch with this raw emotion, enough to even lay it all out and actually put it on paper, that I feel like I can take it on wholeheartedly. But then the sadness grips me again. Because I know I have tp be the first to change. Isn’t that the famous quote we all hear, “Be the change you want to see in others”? But the truth of the matter is time will go by. Old habits and deep rooted feelings are simply too strong. Already I feel defeated. I just can’t see how change will be made. And the little girl inside who wants to be asked specifically questions about her life, her day, her heart, just cries and longs for this change… For this care… For this love.
Change is not easy…. But it isn’t impossible either.
