The devil is in the details

Daddy's little girl?

I've been lying awake for a while now mulling this over in my head and I finally decided to write about it. It's a bit of a change of pace from other things I write about (see post below for an example), but oh well. Just to let you know, the thoughts racing around my head only STARTED on this topic; they have since moved on to other, related issues, so it is entirely possible that more posts of the same nature may pop up, and I will freely admit my decision to share this is somewhat influenced by a couple of other blogs that I frequent.

I grew up in a very small, rural town in very far north upstate New York. All of my relatives (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents) live in upstate NY. I am the only one not there. The town has about 2000 people and is particularly insular. One of the many things that I often say about this town is that it is a shining example of the idea that rednecks/hicks etc. are not unique to the South. There are a variety of peculiarities about life there that have influenced me in one way or another, but that is a subject for another time. I also often think of this town as being the world in the mind of a small child. There is the stoplight, the post office, the grocery store, the elementary school, the main street, the bank and on and on, the same way that there is THE whatever in a little "town" that a little girl might make for her dolls to live in. Or maybe that was an influence of the town too. We shall call this town Smallville. In actuality, my family does not, in fact, live in the Village of Smallville. They live two miles outside of the village, in the middle of a forest, in the Town of Smallville (which encompasses the Village). They moved out of the house I grew up in when I was a freshman in college to live in the house they live in now. Both houses were two miles outside of the Village, though in different directions. Being in the middle of nowhere is purposeful. I can't say that it is the most exciting or fun place in the whole world and there are certainly things that I very much dislike about it. Part of it is based on experiences there (something like fish in ponds) and part of it is just that I enjoy being in a city with lots of opportunity around. I've never fallen under the idyllic spell of the place. In the end though, it is comfortable because it is home and because my family, whom I love very much live there. I would probably never want to live there as an adult, but I enjoy seeing my family.

So who is this family that I speak of? Well, there is my little sister, who is 11 years younger than me. She is my only sibling, and is in many ways my clone I refer to her either as my clone, mini-me or as the person that I wish that I were. I ADORE her. She is my favorite person ever. We talk daily-about the trials and tribulations of being a teenager, or being saddled with our parents (particularly our mother), or homework, or field hockey or whatever.

There is my mother, the nut. Don't get me wrong, she is wonderful, but she also has a very strict idea of the way that things are supposed to be, and she gets very upset by changes to this idea. She can also be a little emotional. My mom, her dysfunction and how she affects me are a much longer story than all this, but she is not the point of the story as you may have figured from the title.

Then there is my dad. My dad grew up as the oldest son of a farmer and he is very much the farm boy at heart. My dad actually grew up in a place called Wicked Smallville (to be precise-my extended family on both sides hail from Wicked Smallville, though my mom's parents moved away when she was 2.) Wicked Smallville is in the same general area as Smallville: part of the same school district, the people from this area come to our town for the grocery store, the post office...) I just googled the smaller town to get a population to give you a feel for it, and I found out that it is 265, thanks to epodunk.com. Seriously.

One very salient piece of information about my dad is that growing up in such a small place has made him extremely uncomfortable around groups of people, or in crowds, or basically anywhere other than a wide-open space. This, of course, is the reason for living two miles from town. He was given a full scholarship to play football at a University You've Heard Of, and dropped out after a semester because there were too many people at said school. Also of note: when I was a small child he went back to college to get a degree which is a factor in many of my earliest memories and is largely responsible for my respect for education. My dad and I were always EXTREMELY close when I was a child..we are very similar in a lot of ways. I talk to my dad much less than my mom or my sister now: he doesn't come when they come out on shopping trips and he doesn't talk on the phone because he is has trouble hearing. (That makes him sound so old. He's not old. Their phone just sucks, and if they'd get a new phone he could hear just fine and talk to me lots. They don't listen to me.) I really enjoy it when I see or talk to my dad (like when I FORCE him to talk to me on the phone to help me with fantasy football picks) but it doesn't happen very often.

I mentioned that my family was coming to visit a couple weeks ago. I was really excited because ALL THREE of them were going to come, and we were going to go around and be tourists and take a Duck Tour and go to the aquarium and do fun things like that. My mom loves to take road trips so she comes to visit me often for shopping weekends. The thing is: I can go shopping anytime by myself. I rarely go do all of the other things by myself. I want to go show off all of the things I love about Boston to my family!! Their trip fell through due to a hotel snafu, but they gave me another tentative weekend that they were coming and we got over it. I've been getting a little worried lately since I haven't heard of final confirmation of the details and I talk to my sister daily, so I could have easily been given the message. My mom has been a little evasive and made it sound like my dad was objecting to the trip. I talked to my mom earlier and got the final (or at least current) plan: she and my sister will be coming without my dad. My dad says that he has been to Boston twice and sees no reason to come again. He does not like the city and would rather spend the weekend golfing. It sounded like my mom was a little annoyed with him for saying that there was no reason to come-why aren't I reason enough?? I was more than a little annoyed. I mean, I'm excited to have my mom and sister come for a shopping weekend. Really, I'm psyched to see them! But...why won't my dad come? Why is it that I can only see him when I go home (to Smallville, which isn't exactly my favorite place to be. I go home to see him, why isn't just coming to see ME good enough??) I know he didn't mean it that way, but it would still be nice. Part of me also wonders why my mom went and told me that he said that. I know that she would prefer it if I were close by-living in the same area like the rest of the extended family so that she would see me all the time, so I wonder if she isn't just trying to make me feel a little guilty. I'm happy that they are coming and I know they don't mean to make me feel bad, but I just wish things would be a little different for once.

posted by Immunegirl @ 3:46 AM