(no subject)
So, my aforementioned much-anticipated meeting with my uncle and auntie actually went really well. I was a total bundle of nerves for most of the day before, because I anticipated most of the conversation to be about my life - which is pretty natural, they hadn't seen or practically heard from me in seven years, but since right now my life is up in the air and makes me feel like a complete loser, I really didn't want to do that. Plus, last time I saw them was when everything was falling apart and my uncle was being really nasty, to the point of not saying goodbye to me, even though he knew there was no telling when we'd see each other again. So I spent a lot of time worrying about what I'd say and reapplying makeup and wondering whether I should take my pins off. But then they showed up, and they looked pretty much the way I remembered them (and I totally didn't), and we hugged each other and didn't want to let go and kept laughing and my uncle almost cried. And after that it was pretty much all good. There ended up not being too much awkwardness, although my mother was conspicuously absent, and we had a rather halting conversation about my mental health, wherein my auntie wanted to know how things were going but was obviously really upset over it, and I have no personal sense of shame (like I said, strangers on the street ask me about my scars, it would be really hard to preserve one), but didn't know how to delicately say "Do you know about the time I almost died," and then my uncle seemed to make it clear he didn't really want to talk about that. Which is generally fine, really. But most of the time we talked about books and people we knew and interesting things to read on the Internet and my uncle going places one is technically banned from going in Burma. I also ended up with his email address and he mine, so there will probably be future contact. Maybe we'll talk about sticky subjects then, I don't know.