Two posts in one day! But this last is what I really wanted to get out when I was writing the other.
In some ways the last six months have been very difficult. My presence in two new extended families is starting to feel quite comfortable, and I feel I've grown close with both my father's brother and my mother's sister. But my father and siblings are... pleasant. Kind. Nice. Welcoming. But there is also no sign of growth there. Maybe we're all just scrambling for a script, and to be fair it's no small thing to have a full older brother dropped on you out of the blue.
To give my father credit, I can see that he cares but has a lot of stuff to work through. God, I sure can't blame him for that, he's had a rough time the last few years and I show up just as he's getting over the loss of his wife (my mother).
But in my siblings I see a wall of pleasant amiability. Just what the hell do I want? To be close somehow, I suppose. I don't demand that of them, but I do ask that they show me they care I showed up, really care, in a way that is unquestionably not public performance. That's a damned heavy thing to ask, and they've got a lot to get through too: my being there, their parents' secret, their re-evaluation of their late mother. I suppose when I think about it the total absence of any visible emotional reaction to my appearance is evidence enough that they care but are repressing. Stoicism seems to run on both sides. :)
Really, I guess I'm just sick of walls. But these aren't the vast impersonal bureaucratic fortifications that held my name in check for 31 years; they are little organic ones, built hastily in defence. With good sense and goodwill on all our parts, I have faith they will erode.
