It’s been almost a year. A year since the estrangement with my one and only sibling began. Why am I putting my pen to page on this topic now? I guess because my writing has always had one purpose…to make people feel less alone. And estrangement feels lonely.
It’s true our family hasn’t always agreed on some important things, whether it be politics, childhood experiences, how to heal from those experiences, and even whether to talk about those experiences. Like many families, our toughest moments have always revolved around our past, and of course, the past usually leads us down the road of how those experiences live on in our family space. In the past years, with some help, I’d come to terms with many realizations that I may never see eye-to-eye with some members of my family whom I hold extremely dear. We were working through those realizations. What I didn’t see coming was how strongly we were about to disagree on issues impacting the precious next generation.
I’ve known for some time now that I am the red flag-raiser, the cycle-breaker, the hard truth-teller in the family – even in times when I know it won’t be welcomed, on holidays (I regret that one), at parties, in the light of day, or the darkness of our past. I’ve accepted on multiple occasions that my willingness to do so alienates me whether in the short or until now, medium-term.
But here we are. Each soul is stretched so differently than the loved one next to us by this pain. Strained by our differing morals. How did one set of three parents raise two women with such radically opposing takes on something so simple? When did those parents stop being parents and become individuals fighting not for what feels right, but what feels least wrong?
I have more questions than I have answers, obviously. What I do know is I have walked in daughter shoes. Mother shoes. Wife shoes. Niece Shoes. Cousin Shoes. This shoe collection generally makes me multifaceted when tackling a problem. But I haven’t yet walked in Grandparent shoes – I am told those are some heavy shoes to wear. These shoes often don’t feel comfortable, they may feel tight, or worn out. Grandparenting isn’t always about the fun and games of spoiling and returning. There is balancing, calculating, deciding when to say a thing, and when to restrain yourself – all for the good of those grandbabies and their presumably well-intentioned parents. Intellectually, I know and understand that. Emotionally though, it doesn’t feel so complicated. Emotionally it feels simple. Our specific situation, at the most basic level, (more basic than the average reader of this will understand, but in a way that my family will wholeheartedly grasp), starts and ends with one thing…loneliness, isolation even, and I want all of us, in every generation of my family to feel less alone.
I want our parents to feel less alone, even with a house full of people, if not ALL the people. I want the cousins who grew up as only children to feel less alone as children and as future adults. I want these babies to feel less alone every day. I want to feel less alone. I want to have back the only person who knows what our specific type of dark scary isolation felt like, when no one else did. I want my sister to feel less alone too. I want to wear Aunt shoes. Badly.
Like I said, I don’t have answers tonight. What I have is love and understanding. If you’re reading this and you’re the cycle-breaker in your family, you know this can come at a cost. That cost is often blame and holding the burden of being able to “make it better” if you’d “just let this go.” If this is you, remember that cycle-breaking, no matter in which generation, is powerful and brave. More than anything it’s lonely. So I just wanted you to know, you’re not alone.
“This is love. It is a mass of ice melting. I can’t hold it and I have nowhere to put it down.” – Molly Brodak
Comments