It’s a hard pill to swallow when you realize that your family is beginning to form their own families.I always considered my family to be close on my mother side. Its four sisters and all the cousins, seven of us grew up together. We generally went to the same schools, hung out after school, and I even went to the same college as my older cousin (by force of my mother).
With all of us getting older, we all have carved out our own place in the world. Some of us have our own families, and the families who went to every basketball game, concert band and football game is suddenly to busy to spend time during the holidays.
I can’t say that I blame anyone. I’m guilty for the disconnect too. I’m married, I’m a workaholic and sometimes I’m too busy to pick up the phone to call my family. And now, I also have a new family, Jason’s side to consider. So when I heard the news that half of my extended family may not be attendance for Thanksgiving, I felt like crying.
I felt like crying for my childhood, crying for the disconnect that I couldn’t seem to stop grown and crying for the solution I couldn’t seem to find. Is this a unique situation or is this a part of being an adult – letting go and accepting the changes from the family you grew up with to start a new chapter of your own?
In ten years will I greet my aunts and cousins as strangers? Will their children and my children look at each other with cool disinterest? I haven’t the slightest clue as to how to change it, but this isn’t what I thought it was supposed to be. I thought being close to your family was forever.
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