In a teenage angst-ridden sketchbook I declared, “I hate family gatherings.”

This statement has been thrown back at my numerous times in past years by immediate and extended family members, in jest, in empathy, and in disappointment.

I always felt out of place at family gatherings, being practically the middle grandchild of 14 (I think) on one side and being the lone girl (and an odd one at that) for most of my life on the other.  Family was distant, the same questions were asked over and over (jobs, boys, questions about my immediate family), and I dreaded having to repeat myself so often, share information that felt irrelevant. Often I wished I was better at lying, wishing I could come up with exaggerated situations to either baffle my family or make myself seem more interesting in their eyes. But then again I always seem to baffle them.

Family is different nowadays. Extended gatherings are few and far between, with no one stepping up to the plate and declaring their house as a place to meet, or relatives leaving the plans up to someone like me who doesn’t think to plan two weeks ahead (much less three days ahead).  Sometimes I miss the old family gatherings. The multiple tables set up in Grandpa’s living room, the weird gifts for grandchildren, the hot ham or ‘planets’ or cheesy potatoes, playing hide and go seek in the dark. Those days have ended.

Due to extreme changes in my immediate family life, and slower changes in my extended, I’ve developed an interest in other people’s family pictures. On my apartment walls are strangers, not one person I know is up there. Some are given to me,  some I have bought at thrift stores or antique malls, but primarily I find them on the street, in trash cans, in frames/photo albums at the thrift store.  Someday I’d like to make a family tree of these strangers in my life. I haven’t yet determined how they are all related.

“I hate family gatherings” may not really be a true statement anymore. Perhaps I am just bored, or uncomfortable with being viewed as strange (which may be an internal struggle).  I believe I find it harder to relate to my relatives than to relate to a friend or sometimes someone I hardly know.

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12/10/09: 1. information 2. productivity 3. forgetting I had my phone 4. pilates 5. Islamic grocery store

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