Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Two months, a wrap
It's a wrap, but I don't feel too good about this one. I hugged my grandparents and cousin goodbye today as they took off to the airport, wrapping up almost two months of intense family-time together. A sense of tacit unease settled in as we stood together getting ready to say our goodbyes. My grandparents stood a cool couple of feet away from me, and looked at me for a few moments. I did the same trying to muster up a smile and find something to say. "I don't think he wants us to kiss him goodbye," my grandma mouthed aloud quietly.
Ouch, that hurt. The look on my face iced over. I didn't really know how to respond to that. My grandpa, who was standing behind my grandma, broke the awkward silence declaring, "well if you won't, then I will." He walked up to me and lay a prickly, goateed kiss on my cheek and gave me a hug. I smiled, that was a relief. Mechanically, my grandmother followed course. We hugged, but it wasn't the tight, long hug I grew so used to receiving from her. This one started as quick as it ended, and next thing I knew I was hugging goodbye my goofy little cousin.
We each walked away in our separate directions and that was that. I felt really bad about the way this all ended, and for that matter, the way the past two months went by. Previously, our goodbyes used to last for hours, or days in some cases. We'd spend gobs of time recounting all that we experienced together in the last visit, maybe indulging in some memories and family stories, and then summing things up with some words of wisdom, compliments, and wishes for the future. This time around not much was said at all. It was short, cold, and distant. That kind of hurt.
The visit? Well, I'm glad my grandparents came, and I'm especially glad they brought along one of my little cousins this time. I appreciate the huge effort they made to come over, especially since we see each other so infrequently (last time was in December, and last time I saw the cousin was a year and a half ago), but this was a combination of bad timing and a lack of moderation.
My grandma flew in first. She arrived four days after I returned home from college. Pooped doesn't even begin to describe how I was feeling at that time. I was coming right out of a wildly crazy first year at college, 24 hours in which I had to pass 3 final exams and submit 25 pages of final papers, and then a three-day drive out of New York back to the northern Heartland. I figured it would take me the whole summer to recuperate from all of that, so suffice to say that after four days I was in no shape to start entertaining.
But it mostly fell on me. Since it was still mid-may, my sister was still in school during the day and working in the evening, and my parents both worked full days, too. Q. Guess who was left home with Grams 24/7? A. Moi. So I tried. I half rested, and half spent time with her. After a week of that, I took her on a week-long road trip to the Badlands and the mountains of South Dakota and Wyoming. It was exhilaratingly fun and fulfilling, but then again, y'all know how intense something like that can get.
June and July thus far were scattered with down-time at home, and trips. It was more of the same, but it chugged by confusingly at the speed of a heartbeat. It's like I've just been spit out of a surreal vortex where time stood still, but didn't at the same time. So here I am now, at 11:40pm on July 19th, over two months after I got home from college, although I feel like I could have very well just returned a couple hours ago.
So here I am, the same old wacko I was when I finished the school year but with one more piece of baggage to carry along with me. I don't feel great about the time I spent with my grandparents and cousin. Since I get to see them so seldom there was this insane pressure to make every second count. How do you do that for two months without going nuts?
I think the hardest thing about it all was just seeing how old my grandparents have become. I'm not just talking about age, I'm talking about their ability to function. They've become so forgetful, repeating the same questions they asked about a minute ago, and within five minutes forgetting almost everything you talked about. After two months of riding in our car they were still asking how to open the car door, or how to open the car window. It's been two months of hearing so many of the same stories, so many times, and by our last week together it seemed like we were still having the same conversation we had the day we met.
Well, I digress... the point I've been so long windedly trying to make is that I still feel like the same person I was two months ago--angry, depressed, confused, disoriented, and mostly, terribly burnt out. The idea is that now I have a month (exactly) to pick up the pieces and try to get the rest and relaxation and therapy I so adamantly tried to reserve this summer for.
The sad thing? I know how these things go... I left too much for too little time, and I'm sure plenty of distractions will pop up in this next month. Nevertheless, let my attempt to recharge my human batteries begin. Wish me luck, or something like that...
Ouch, that hurt. The look on my face iced over. I didn't really know how to respond to that. My grandpa, who was standing behind my grandma, broke the awkward silence declaring, "well if you won't, then I will." He walked up to me and lay a prickly, goateed kiss on my cheek and gave me a hug. I smiled, that was a relief. Mechanically, my grandmother followed course. We hugged, but it wasn't the tight, long hug I grew so used to receiving from her. This one started as quick as it ended, and next thing I knew I was hugging goodbye my goofy little cousin.
We each walked away in our separate directions and that was that. I felt really bad about the way this all ended, and for that matter, the way the past two months went by. Previously, our goodbyes used to last for hours, or days in some cases. We'd spend gobs of time recounting all that we experienced together in the last visit, maybe indulging in some memories and family stories, and then summing things up with some words of wisdom, compliments, and wishes for the future. This time around not much was said at all. It was short, cold, and distant. That kind of hurt.
The visit? Well, I'm glad my grandparents came, and I'm especially glad they brought along one of my little cousins this time. I appreciate the huge effort they made to come over, especially since we see each other so infrequently (last time was in December, and last time I saw the cousin was a year and a half ago), but this was a combination of bad timing and a lack of moderation.
My grandma flew in first. She arrived four days after I returned home from college. Pooped doesn't even begin to describe how I was feeling at that time. I was coming right out of a wildly crazy first year at college, 24 hours in which I had to pass 3 final exams and submit 25 pages of final papers, and then a three-day drive out of New York back to the northern Heartland. I figured it would take me the whole summer to recuperate from all of that, so suffice to say that after four days I was in no shape to start entertaining.
But it mostly fell on me. Since it was still mid-may, my sister was still in school during the day and working in the evening, and my parents both worked full days, too. Q. Guess who was left home with Grams 24/7? A. Moi. So I tried. I half rested, and half spent time with her. After a week of that, I took her on a week-long road trip to the Badlands and the mountains of South Dakota and Wyoming. It was exhilaratingly fun and fulfilling, but then again, y'all know how intense something like that can get.
June and July thus far were scattered with down-time at home, and trips. It was more of the same, but it chugged by confusingly at the speed of a heartbeat. It's like I've just been spit out of a surreal vortex where time stood still, but didn't at the same time. So here I am now, at 11:40pm on July 19th, over two months after I got home from college, although I feel like I could have very well just returned a couple hours ago.
So here I am, the same old wacko I was when I finished the school year but with one more piece of baggage to carry along with me. I don't feel great about the time I spent with my grandparents and cousin. Since I get to see them so seldom there was this insane pressure to make every second count. How do you do that for two months without going nuts?
I think the hardest thing about it all was just seeing how old my grandparents have become. I'm not just talking about age, I'm talking about their ability to function. They've become so forgetful, repeating the same questions they asked about a minute ago, and within five minutes forgetting almost everything you talked about. After two months of riding in our car they were still asking how to open the car door, or how to open the car window. It's been two months of hearing so many of the same stories, so many times, and by our last week together it seemed like we were still having the same conversation we had the day we met.
Well, I digress... the point I've been so long windedly trying to make is that I still feel like the same person I was two months ago--angry, depressed, confused, disoriented, and mostly, terribly burnt out. The idea is that now I have a month (exactly) to pick up the pieces and try to get the rest and relaxation and therapy I so adamantly tried to reserve this summer for.
The sad thing? I know how these things go... I left too much for too little time, and I'm sure plenty of distractions will pop up in this next month. Nevertheless, let my attempt to recharge my human batteries begin. Wish me luck, or something like that...
