Resolving To Close The Distance A Little

I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching over the weekend. Mostly I’ve been thinking about my relationships with family and with the people I consider my friends. My grandmother’s death made me realize a few things about myself, a few things I’d like to change.

I’m not particularly close to my family beyond my parents. It seems to me that when I was younger, probably pre-college, I was closer to all of them. I don’t know if it’s a symptom of my depression that I distanced myself from them but I do seem to distance myself from everyone. I certainly don’t think there’s any one person I can bare my entire soul to or trust completely. I think I simply don’t allow myself to be in danger of being too hurt by the words and actions of others. I’ve done that in the past and it obviously hasn’t worked out well.

So, I have a fear of intimacy as far as being close to anyone. This is a lonely place to be.

My grandmother was something of a party girl when she was younger. She and my step-grandfather had a fridge built specifically for their keg. There are all sorts of photos of them at parties surrounded by their friends. They did everything together. If he had to take a certification class for something to do with their yatch, she went too. He was involved in her sewing business too. They were each other’s world.

I will admit that I think that sort of relationship is too much. I certainly think people need to have their own space and hobbies and such, but my grandmother obviously loved it and that’s fine. However, when my step-grandfather died, my grandmother didn’t know what to do. She had depended on her husband to make the decisions and take care of her and guide her through life for so long that she was lost. After all, he had been her whole world and then he was gone. She sunk into a great depression and I honestly believe she was trying to will herself to die. She went to live with my parents, she lost touch with her friends, and she never wanted to do anything with anyone except my mother. She also didn’t want to care for herself and this is where I lost patience with her. I admit it. I have a very low tolerance for someone who wants to be waited on hand and foot to the point of not being able to go to the bathroom on their own and then complains about their ailing and deteriorating body — mind you, I’d already gone through years of that with El. I could read the signs and quite frankly, I believe that a person should make every effort to take care of themselves and not be a burden on anyone else.

And that’s the kicker I guess. I was angry at my grandmother for not only allowing herself to become a burden on my mother but inflicting my mother with such burden. My grandmother wanted my mother to be her slave and I resented that. My mother deserves her retirement. She deserves to enjoy her life but she feels a lot of pressure to be the caretaker of everyone from her good-for-nothing “disabled” brother to her mother and grandmother to everyone else in the family, including me, and I think she should be free.

I admit I was also holding a grudge for some ungrateful things my grandmother said to me a few years ago too.

So, in the end, I was not as close to my grandmother as I could have been I suppose. For a lot of reasons.

I guess I’m still waiting to have that really good cry after I finally realize she’s really gone. It’s harder to accept that a person is gone when you don’t have the closure of a funeral or wake. I had a similar issue when my step-grandmother was murdered when I was in college. But I do also wonder if I haven’t had my cry because we weren’t close in the end.

Anyway, so for a variety of reasons, I am not close with the rest of the family either. I don’t care for either of my parent’s crazy brothers and do not want to have anything to do with them either. As a result, I haven’t seen my now anorexic cousin since Christmas of ‘92.

I can’t recall the last time I saw my aunt, who I do like, who has met, lived with, and married a man I’ve never met in this time. I think perhaps when my cousin, her son, committed suicide, she reached out to me but I was so close to my own suicide at the time that I couldn’t talk to her. And my cousin had an illegitimate son, who we aren’t supposed to talk about in front of my paternal grandmother (my only living grandparent), who I’ve never met. I don’t even know his age.

So, I’ve decided that sometime this year, perhaps in the summer when my cousin’s son visits his grandma (my aunt), I’ll go down to Ohio and visit. I think I’d like to get to know my aunt again and maybe start a new friendship with her. She’s really rather cool. Plus, I’d like to visit my own grandma who’s now in a seniors’ home there.

I want to learn to be more tolerant and patient with the people I love this year too. I guess this is one of my New Years’ Resolutions.

tags: dysfunctional family, depression

One comment

1. on October 26, 2006 at 10:46 am

   Heather said:

   I would like to see if I can help you. I work at a nationally syndicated TV talk show with a psychiatrist as the host. We are currenlty looking for guests who have phobias, including a fear of intimacy or commitment. If you are interested in speaking out and getting help for yourself as well, please email me at apheathervergo@yahoo.com.
   Thank you.

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