The Mixed Bag

I am flying to Chicago tomorrow morning to attend my stepbrother Josh's PhD graduation from Northwestern. I am feeling a bit nervous about it. I am excited to travel and to see Chicago. Then there's the family part. I love my mixed up, muddled up family. It's not your usual mother-father-kids family. It's divorced, adopted, hippie, mix and match family. When I say 'stepbrother' it doesn't actually mean the usual sense of stepbrother. I call him that because it's the easiest way to explain it. In any case, it's still family. I don't think I am alone when I say that no matter the equation, family is a mixed bag.

This is how it usually goes with this portion of my family: I am excited to see them, there is a rush of talk and activity and catching up. Then by the end of the first day there's that creeping sensation that there is something slightly wrong with me. My clothes seem kind of ratty, and I feel overweight. By the second evening I am doubting my whole life and wondering where the normal me has gone. Normally, I'm an adult who pays her own bills, and makes decisions for herself. On day 3, I am a bag lady who talks to herself and is convinced God is in the pigeons.

Or at least that's how it feels.

Here's the thing, I'm one of those people who can do smalltalk for only so long. After 3 days of it, I am literally feeling crazy. I've tried many times to connect--and sometimes there are real moments of it, but I've also come to realize that everyone has their style of connecting or not connecting. I'm known as the EMOTIONAL ONE in the family. Oh, don't look now--she's CRYING! Everyone kind of shoos at me with their hands or looks uncomfortably at the floor when I start emoting. That's my thing, so I also tend to feel this pressure of holding it all together. Mix that with the sense of inadequacy that comes with having a sibling that looks really damned good on paper. I've always been the arty family member. I may have made an album, but what's that to a teaching post at a university, research in Russia, and papers published? And now we are going to celebrate his PhD. Apples and oranges, right? HA!

Or at least that's how it feels.

So here are the tools in the survival kit: Brand new journal and polaroid camera to remind me of what I love about my life. The new David Sedaris book, so I can remember my sense of humor. Also, I know the drill. If I start feeling this way, I can just remind myself that's how it ALWAYS feels. Either that, or I can always find a pigeon and ask for some advice.