These were the things that were expected of us, overeducated American coastal kids. Push yourself hard, excel, leave your home—your family—far behind, set up a life somewhere else, somewhere better.
I did these things and came to feel disconnected and rootless. Without close family, either emotionally or in proximity, it's hard to know where or if you belong. Foundations without family are all make-believe, easily dismantled, quickly abandoned.
The one thing that I have yearned to give my son, a real sense of family belonging, is the one thing far beyond my grasp. There is no way for me to pass down what I have never possessed myself.
My ancestry feels foreign to me, like it belongs to someone else. There were Norwegians and Italians and Englishmen arriving at the dawn of the nation, but I am barely of them; instead, I'm an American, a northeasterner, an east coaster, with none of those traditions that held my ancestors together.
This is the world I was born into, the one I was meant to enter armed with degrees and contacts and will to success. We overeducated coastal Americans are encouraged to abandon every personal connection and set off to pursue our dreams alone.
Perhaps we coastal Americans have this idea that family is the default, that having close ties will just happen, that we don't need to teach our kids how important it is to nurture those ties because blood will bind. Perhaps we think family doesn't matter, that home is where you lay your head. It's a lie.
Families split apart far easier than they are held together. An unkind word, a misconstrued joke, an overzealous judgement can all fracture long term bonds and create a rift that is harder to heal the more time goes by. Pride, convenience, shame, righteousness all get in the way.
Worse than intentional disconnections are those that just happen through neglect. When we don't keep in touch with our families, when divorce muddies things up, when it becomes easier to not call for months, then years, we lose those tenuous bonds we had altogether.
I'm as guilty as anyone. I'm terrible at returning calls, Christmas cards, remembering birthdays. I tell myself I'm too busy, or that it's been so long there's no way to pick up the phone now, or that the offense I've already caused by being absent is too grave to overcome.
I've never had a close family. Multiple divorces splintered holidays into prisms where often I'd find myself trying to see each parent, each grandparent, separately. Some half dozen visits later it would feel easier to just Friendsgiving and skip the whole family thing entirely.
My family never prioritized family. My divorced parents were off doing their own thing, often with their new spouses' families, in which I was decidedly and obviously an outsider. If we got together with their brothers and sisters, it was infrequent.
My parents were each the oldest of their siblings, and I was the oldest and only grandchild until I was 12. The new cousins were babies, and after a fresh round of divorce, I didn't feel like I belonged anywhere except on my own.
I felt rootless by 16, like I was never connected to anyone or anything. I ended up in New York, where my mother is from, because it is a place where being permanently transient can be a lifestyle, and it was one in which I took comfort.
It worked for me until it didn't. Friends are only family as long as they are friends, but if they choose to never see you again, that's it, the ties are severed; you'll never run into them at grandma's house.
I looked around as a grown adult, a mother, only to discover that we were adrift from family. As the years went on, I clung to every wedding invitation, baby shower, christening, and hoped my child and I wouldn't be forgotten as circles of family closed with me and my son on the outside.
There's got to be someone to hold it together, or it will crumble to nothing. Sometimes it's a grandparent to whom all the offspring flock every year, coming home to get a blessing, a word of wisdom, an old family recipe. Sometimes it's that one aunt who never forgets to invite everyone in for a little nog and gossip.
You don't have to like your family. You can disapprove of their choices, their lifestyles, their spouses, but it doesn't really matter. When you love someone, it's enough to meet them where they stand, see them at holidays, invite them in, pull up a chair.
If you have these traditions of family communion, hold tight to them. Pass them on to your kids, help them build new bonds with your cousins' kids. It actually really, deeply matters and don't for a second think that it doesn't. Make something lasting.
