Dear, Joe.
You're coming to spend the summer? Well, okay, let me give you alittle run down of how things kinda run around here. Guess you'll have to decide whether to stay with me or dad. I live in Buffalo with my girl and her three kids: Chaos ensues. I think youll have fun there, but you also might lose some hair when the kids go to killing eachother and/or dividing assets of somekind.
Dad of course lives in the middle of nowhere. Should you stay out there youll be spending alot of time at the river, watching CBS, and probably having early morning theological/political discussions. I'll come out and provide you with back up. Dad and I get along well, but in a cold, detatched sort of way, unless we are ranting about something.
I know you haven't seen Mom in a long time, so you should probably say hi. Mom is witty and eccentric as always. You won't be able to pick up on our conversations because no one does.
Mom's been spending alot of time fixing her old house, and stays alittle frazzled. We help her work on the house when we can, and I guess thats where most of our "family time" takes place.
Bev is Mom's friend, and she's almost indescibable. She's sort of Worldly and Back-Home all at the same time. She makes her living trading things that retailers don't want around anymore, and as such knows how to make the best of things. If you spend anytime at Mom's with us, there is no telling what sort of conversation you may find yourself involed in.
We all try to keep our noses pretty much clean these days. We're all getting older, but in different respects, I supose. You'll find that much of our perspective comes from leading a hard and rather unorthodox life, but really I think these kinds of families are becoming more common all the time.
Admissions Board
I come from what might be called a broken family. My parents split up when I was 4, and were divorced when I was five. I lived with my mother, who was somewhat broken by the incident. I saw my father maybe once a year. I was raised with a strong sense of dysfuntion.
I was a very angry child. I think I came by it honestly. As I started to mature into a teenager, I began to get in more and more trouble, and it was my policy to differ the causation of the trouble onto another person. Looking back now, I dont think I was ever fully accountable for anything I did. It was when the trouble started that Dear Old Dad decided maybe he should have a role in my life. I went from living with a broken mother whom I could control, to living with a stern old outlaw father with very little evidence of compassion or human emotion. My strategy changed considerably during this transition.
They never got along, Mom and Dad, and their only unifying factor was trying to find a way to keep me out of a long term shit storm. Part of me resented them both for their attempt to stifle an already broken child, and part of me was wracked with guilt that I could never live up to their expectations, modist though they were.
I eventually moved back with my mother, abandoning my angry father, and running the muck that I had always dreamed of. I always had certain standards for myself, and as long as they didnt involve me submitting to any kind of authority I was pretty good about adhearing to them. I was considered oddly moral for the crowd that I ran in........._unfinished_
China Kid.
Dear Eastern Student Counter Part.
I only know bits and pieces about your culture. I am very interested to hear about your family life in particular. I hope I am not off base by asking. Perhaps it would help if I told you something of my own family dynamic.
I am a child of divorce. This is now a pretty common thing in my country, almost a cultural norm, or at least it is in my mind. Certainly nothing to be too very broken up about. My parents are two very different people, with their own inherent merits and faults, and I can't even imagine them sharing a living space. I love them both seperately, and never had any childhood fantasies about their reconciliation. It's much better that way for all of us.
My family is pretty much limited to Mom and Dad. I know Mom's family, but I dont mesh with them well, so it is Mom and Dad that we will focus on.
They disagreed about much during the course of my childhood. It is really only now that I am an adult that they have a civil relationship betwen them even in my absense. They have actually been spending alot more time together than either of them do with me. No, they are not getting back together. I shudder at the thought, as do do they, as far as I know, but I believe that they have accepted the fact that we are some kind of family for eachother. Even if our family isn't exactly textbook, I believe that there comes a time when you realize that the people that are in your life, whoever they are, are there for a reason.
We went out the other night. Me, Mom, Dad, and Lindsay- my girlfriend- all together at a bar. It was odd, definately, but not at all awkward. I happen to like my closely-independent little family, and I don't believe I would trade them for all the tea in China.
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