Holiday Season

Someone on Tumblr wrote today, "I can't believe it's already Christmas 1."

I don't really celebrate Christmas.  While I like the music, I don't exchange gifts with anyone, & as concerns my family, I don't enjoy the forced nature of the holiday.  I have a pretty large family, four brothers & two sisters, & while I am pretty close with my sisters, whom I genuinely like, I haven't spoken to any of my brothers in years.  & the reverse is true: they haven't spoken to me, or made any attempt to, in years.

I marvel at families who really seem to like each other, to be around one another.  The only thing that keeps my family sort-of together is our mother - mainly my family gathers for her birthday, for Thanksgiving, & for Christmas.  It also helps, I guess, that most everyone in my family, except for me & my oldest brother, live in the Dallas area.  Most, actually, live in the same town as my mother.  Which should say something about her apron strings.

I've told my mother that I don't imagine I'll speak to my brothers again after her funeral.  She characterizes that as me "hating" them.  I tell her, "How can I hate someone I don't really know?"

There's a scene in the wonderful movie "The Perks Of Being A Wallflower" in which the older brother of the main character comes home from college.  The older brother is a college sports hero, while the little brother is emotionally troubled.  The older brother takes the time to sit with his little brother & ask how he's doing.  They couldn't be any different from one another, but there's a love that comes from being family that's their bond.

I'm not being self-piteous when I say that that scene was utterly alien to me.  I can't imagine any member of my family - my sisters & mother included - caring that deeply, that openly about me.  I have been through some awful emotional moments, & the most sympathy I ever got was the advice to "man up."  Indeed, when one of my brothers was being what I considered emotionally abused by his spouse, & could have used counseling & a good amount of empathy, that was the advice my mother continued to give him.

It's the lack of any kind of warmth that keeps me away from family gatherings.  I feel like I did my time - I probably attended every Christmas until I was forty - but the sheer claustrophobic unpleasantness of the holiday - basically an evening spent around virtual strangers - in which, in later years, I made sure I had some whiskey to make it at all bearable - I began to excuse myself.  & of course now being hundred of miles away makes it easier for me to stay away.

I am fascinated why my family is this way.  (& by the way, I know I have much of this in me.  I don't have many friends, & I don't long for that, & I don't reach out to most of my siblings.  I also married a woman who has a distinct lack of empathy.)  I came into the family when most of my siblings had gone
through puberty, & I also arrived at the tail-end of my mother & father's marriage.  So they were there most of the time, while I was raised mostly by my mother & I was generally left alone (something for which I'm grateful).  Being a child, I wasn't really able to pay attention to what was going on, & in fact, it's taken me most of my adult life to even notice all of this.

What I'd like to do is ask my siblings - who doubtless don't dwell on the past the way I do - to maybe Skype with me for an hour & let me ask them questions.  I wonder if they'd do it.  I'd like to record the sessions & maybe make them into some sort of narrative, if only just for me.  The energy it would take might be too much, as would the possible resistance.  But if it's true, as I think it is, that I won't speak to any of them once my mother dies, this might be a good idea.

I'll let you know what I do.