Amanda

I had an interesting experience a few weeks ago. I went to my ex-aunt's (uncle's ex-wife's) baby's christening. I saw all these people that I used to spend time with when I was pretty young. My family used to go over to her parents' house for Thanksgiving, and maybe a few Easters. From the very beginning of the event, my mind was saying, "I want to go home." The service was unbelievably un-meaningful, it was almost comical. It went on and on, and the priest kept sort of forgetting where he put his prayer book, and having to interrupt what was going on to go get it. Being that he was about 800 years old, you'd think he would know the service by heart. I was sitting there in my seat thinking "oh, man, Catholicism is stupid, being out in the country is stupid, I sooo have nothing in common with these people who pop out babies to validate their exsistence" and that sort of thing. After the service we went over to my aunt's new home, which is beautiful, an old restored farmhouse, on a big plot of land with a barn and animals and everything. It's country utopia. We sat around for a while, looking at the baby, an activity which definitely has its limit for entertainment value. I mostly talked to my mom, because I figured I probably wouldn't see any of these people for years, why bother chatting? There was a 15-year-old boy there, whom I kept staring at (he probably thought I was some kind of perv), because I was trying to see if I recognized him....he would have been a little tiny kid when I used to go to the Royer Thanksgivings. I wanted to tell him, "I remember when you were THIS tall (making a motion with my hand, near the ground)" so he would realize that I wasn't a perv, but that's such a cliqued old lady thing to do, and I didn't want to get lumped into that category either. So I never ended up talking to him. I have this sort of fear of 15-16 year old boys, becuase I think that they'll get some sort of crush on me, because when I was that age, all the boys had crushes on the 20-something teachers.

After the baby was laid down for a nap, they brought out a cake for the grandfather, Joe, and sang happy birthday, as his birthday was the next day. He opened all his cards, but one had a long message that he couldn't see very well, so he handed it to his daughter to read to him. It was a beautiful message, and she read it with clarity and emotion, and by the time she finished his eyes were full of tears. Everyone was silent, just for a moment, and then the party resumed.

As we got ready to leave, the many children in the family milled around us. I wished I had talked to them more during the party, because I so often like children better than adults, as they haven't become know-it-alls or jerks yet. At the same time, I'm not one of those people who just loves kids indiscriminitely, because they're small and cute and "innocent". I don't immediately bond with kids, and I think sometimes they're not sure how to react to me. One little girl sort of gave me a weird look when I was about to hug her, and I realized - I'm not really a part of this family at all. I totally stayed inside my own head all day, and didn't really interact with anybody because of my own totally strange hangups. I felt like the day had been a failure, in some way. But as we drove away, the same little girl ran outside, yelling, "goodbye!! goodbye!" I smiled at her.
Family is a funny thing - a bunch of people, with totally different interests than yours, that you have to love, no matter what. Some people don't care much for their families, and spend as little time as possible with them, and sometimes, that can be a good thing. Families can reinforce negative beliefs and lifestyles. It's interesting that my family has chosen to keep in contact with, and treat as family, a group of people with whom we have no blood connection. My grandmother took tons of pictures during the christening itself, and after each one, she loudly wound the film, mortifying me, making a big deal over her ex-daughter-in-law's baby like a real grandma would. Maybe it's just her way, maybe obsessive picture-taking, fawning over children, and embracing any concept of family is habit for her - personality-related, like some people devour books in a single sitting, or hate any institution no matter how noble. But maybe her willingness to accept more than just her own kin as family says something else. Maybe it says something about her capacity for love.