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| An imaginary place? |
I grew up in a flawed but functional family. Is there any other kind? I always needed more. But maybe I'm just needy? So when I built my own family, I vowed to give more. Is it ever enough though? It makes me wonder...
Sometimes I think family is like a phantom limb. Even when it's not there...it's there and sometimes you wish it was there again, the way it once was. But that's gone. And because of that it's hard to feel whole.
I wonder about people who grew up in broken families. If you grew up in a broken family do you feel cheated, maybe you miss what your friends had? And if you grew up in a unbroken family, a so-called happy family (does it exist?) eventually you had to leave so you are bound to miss it too.
Either way there's heartbreak and longing.
I just don't know. It's so confusing to me now. I'm a failure at this family thing.
But maybe a family isn't like a phantom limb. Maybe a family is more like 70% of the Earth's surface: water. Is this just part of the cycle? I hope so.
10 comments:
Family is as mutable and undefinable as language. Some people got the family the tv says they should, and others have to make one for themselves out of friends or lovers or kids or lots and lots of cats. I consider myself very good at dealing with my extended family in that I don't. Relieves a lot of stress.
At times I wonder if family is merely a learned thing that society teaches us as being of prime importance, but it really is not. It only seems so. Yes, I come from a "broken home". :) But, maybe we would be better off without biological families and instead regarded the world as our family.
I always liked the idea of the kibbutz where the children belonged to everyone in the community.
I could write an essay on this topic. Suffice to say, I turned out great even though my parents divorced we were all a very close knit family. We went on vacations together. It was how our family was. Hope all is well dbs. Sending you virtual hug, just because.
Agh that Garden State quote made me want to watch it again and not watch it again at the same time...
I know someone who grew up in a very broken home. Now she's an adult & married. She fights hard to not let her past affect the family she's a part of now. Still, she feels cheated sometimes & tries to capture some of the childhood happiness she feels she's missed out on.
Yer bein' too deep for me, man.
I like the 'phantom limb' metaphor.
I came from a 'broken home' but it turned out way better than if they had stayed together. Sometimes the unexpected end of the family brings something new, unexpected and much more amicable for all involved.
This post hit close to home, but I loved it. Introspection is good sometimes.
Quote for the day:
Life and family did not come with instructions, therefore you can't "fail".
Wish you good thoughts.
water...yes I think so. It ebbs and flows and sometimes it is a freaking Tsunami.
but it keeps on flowing
I doubt that your are a failure on this family thing.
otherwise you wouldn't be "thinking about it...giving it any thought at all"
All families are different I've learned...some experience great trials along the way..
why do some have it so easy.
don't know
but...keep those limbs in tact, and if they feel severed from time to time....we work and work and work to repair it.
that's all I know
There is always that longing. I don't miss the tangible things in my life that have become lost or broken along the way, I desperately miss the chaotic Sunday dinners in my parents' dining room, with my mother's good cooking. That room has sat empty for a year and a half.
We all think we fail. That keeps us from becoming complacent, and becoming failures, I think.
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