My Family – Cousin #6

It is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone bitches about their family. However, when a person’s Actual, Real Life Family’s antics begin to mirror those of the Foxmans in This is Where I Leave You, it becomes ridiculous.

Case in point: Cousin #6 (on my Father's side).

First, some background:

• My Mother died on July 30, 2000 after a long illness (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). 
• Watching her die was kind of like watching a balloon let out its air…for six and a half years. Of course, the balloon is someone you love desperately.
• To say that my Mother and I had a troubled relationship is like saying the Grand Canyon is a hole in the ground.
• So of course, when she died, I did.

A couple of months later, a cousin I never really interacted with growing up (she was five years younger and isn’t that so important when you are a child?) invited me up to her place in Portland, Oregon for a weekend of R&R. It was the middle of September.

Walking around downtown Portland for the first time ever was a complete revelation. The air was crisp, the sky was blue, and the trees…

Growing up in sunny So Cal I had never seen leaves turn color before. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

I knew right then and there I had (finally) found my home.

It’s important to note here that my home was in Oregon, not with my cousin. A minor point that should be obvious to all, but unfortunately, it was not.

Two months later, I returned to Oregon for job interviews. Driving back home from massages at Skamania (to which I treated my cousin as a “thank you” for introducing the state to me), my cousin launched into an 80-minute diatribe about how, if I moved to Oregon, I was not to expect anything from her: she was not going to help me get settled, meet people and/or find my way around. And (the capper), “I’m not going to take care of you like your Father does.”

This from a person who grew up 2,273.01 miles away from me.

This from a person with whom, prior to this ride in the car, I’d spent approximately 168 hours in the previous 298,056.

Since then, we’ve spoken nine times in as many years. This includes her wedding (to which I did not receive an invitation) and after her Father’s funeral (which she was unable to attend; my job was to attend and report back to her. So this doesn’t really count: it was a forced communication).

She would say that she felt crowded by my “sudden” presence in her life.

I would say I chose to live in a town 65 miles away from her precisely for that reason (to not crowd her).

I would say that my decision to move to Oregon had nothing to do with her and everything to do with Oregon.

Yes, her invitation was the catalyst. Her invitation to Oregon; not to her life. I understood there was no invitation into her life. I didn’t want an invitation into her life. I wanted to hang out with the trees. I knew only they, if anything, could make me feel better.

(They did.)

It’s a sad God-damned state of affairs that the only way this misunderstanding can get resolved is by blasting it out into cyberspace rather than talking about it with the other party who lives an hour away.

That, in a nutshell, is how my relatives and I best relate: on completely separate, independent and non-intersecting planes.

Note:  While it may seem like I hold onto things for a long time (I do), that's not the entire point of this story.  This information is related to and sets up a more recent story that I will share toward the end of the month.  So...stay tuned, Mrs. Calabash, stay tuned.