(no subject)
What to say, what to do...
In the days since the weekend I've come to better understand the phrase 'you don't know what you've got until it's gone.' Steve is definitely on my mind.
My grandmother is getting cable installed this Friday... It makes me think of Steve because whenever she had trouble with the menu on the Bell satellite (it seems prone to freezing) he would come over and help her.
I'm looking into buying an Apple TV, and that makes me think about Steve's passionate love for Apple products. I was thinking about Star Trek the other day, and how Steve will never get to see the movie. I'm glad he got to see the Hobbit a couple of weeks ago.
Idk. It's affected me more than I expected - I feel my patience fraying at work, and I'm desperately glad of the time that I have off. My family is on my mind, and I miss them. I can't make it home for the funeral, but I'm realising that I want to reach out to my cousins more, and stay in touch better. I'm in touch with them on Facebook, but it's just not enough.
The last year has made me look back at my childhood and realise how lucky I've been. In spite of my grandmother's slight being slightly standoffish, my Uncle Bill and the rest of the family never really let her (or us) pull away completely. My life has been full of love and laughter and family get togethers and many, many hours of babysitting of kids that I completely adored. As I've grown older I've come to realise that that's not the norm - especially when I see the rocky relationship that my sisters have with their grandparents, and other members of the family.
It's also brought out a realisation of long-buried anxieties. I've never really examined closely the issues that I have had due to the fact that my mother was adopted... But the other day I caught myself thinking 'Steve always made me feel like part of the family'. Like... I hadn't really consciously examined the fact that because of my grandmother's attitude and also my knowledge of my mother's adoption, I've always felt different.. 'othered'. Even with my Uncle James and Uncle Robert I've felt that way. Slightly apart, because of my unconscious thought of myself as not quite actually family. Like they were 'real' family and I was different because my mother wasn't 'real' family.
My cousins have never treated me that way, though, and neither have my uncles. They've always done things for me, and tried to give me things that my grandmother couldn't or wouldn't. They realised that I was being raised by a woman who was old fashioned in spite of being loving, and they tried to fill in those gaps even though they couldn't. Uncle Bill was the same way.
I don't really know what I'm trying to say here. I guess I'm just a bit homesick... I'll be able to go home in June, though, and I'm looking forward to that.
There are
comments at Dreamwidth. http://kerri.dreamwidth.org/714691.html#comments
In the days since the weekend I've come to better understand the phrase 'you don't know what you've got until it's gone.' Steve is definitely on my mind.
My grandmother is getting cable installed this Friday... It makes me think of Steve because whenever she had trouble with the menu on the Bell satellite (it seems prone to freezing) he would come over and help her.
I'm looking into buying an Apple TV, and that makes me think about Steve's passionate love for Apple products. I was thinking about Star Trek the other day, and how Steve will never get to see the movie. I'm glad he got to see the Hobbit a couple of weeks ago.
Idk. It's affected me more than I expected - I feel my patience fraying at work, and I'm desperately glad of the time that I have off. My family is on my mind, and I miss them. I can't make it home for the funeral, but I'm realising that I want to reach out to my cousins more, and stay in touch better. I'm in touch with them on Facebook, but it's just not enough.
The last year has made me look back at my childhood and realise how lucky I've been. In spite of my grandmother's slight being slightly standoffish, my Uncle Bill and the rest of the family never really let her (or us) pull away completely. My life has been full of love and laughter and family get togethers and many, many hours of babysitting of kids that I completely adored. As I've grown older I've come to realise that that's not the norm - especially when I see the rocky relationship that my sisters have with their grandparents, and other members of the family.
It's also brought out a realisation of long-buried anxieties. I've never really examined closely the issues that I have had due to the fact that my mother was adopted... But the other day I caught myself thinking 'Steve always made me feel like part of the family'. Like... I hadn't really consciously examined the fact that because of my grandmother's attitude and also my knowledge of my mother's adoption, I've always felt different.. 'othered'. Even with my Uncle James and Uncle Robert I've felt that way. Slightly apart, because of my unconscious thought of myself as not quite actually family. Like they were 'real' family and I was different because my mother wasn't 'real' family.
My cousins have never treated me that way, though, and neither have my uncles. They've always done things for me, and tried to give me things that my grandmother couldn't or wouldn't. They realised that I was being raised by a woman who was old fashioned in spite of being loving, and they tried to fill in those gaps even though they couldn't. Uncle Bill was the same way.
I don't really know what I'm trying to say here. I guess I'm just a bit homesick... I'll be able to go home in June, though, and I'm looking forward to that.
There are
comments at Dreamwidth. http://kerri.dreamwidth.org/714691.html#comments