Vent: My Blood Family is Driving Me Insane
A week or two ago, sinboy wrote in e-mail that overall he's having a good time, but he misses his
Dreamland family. They understand him better, he says, and his need for space. Boy, do I know where he's coming from!
My mum was part of a family with nine children, so they never grew up with quiet or privacy. Quiet and privacy are things that I need a certain amount of, and I've had bugger all since I started travelling with Mum. As a result, my patience is wearing thin. I can be understanding about a certain amount, for example, Mum's lack of map-reading skills. It never occurred to me that Mum might be one of these people who just doesn't get maps, and I remember now that she's never been good at reading in a moving vehicle. However, I did get tired of having to repeat myself several times: the numbers in circles are exit numbers, and the numbers in rectangles are route numbers. She thought the numbers just printed by themselves above roads were route numbers. No, those numbers are the distances in kilometres between exits. No wonder my gut sense of direction felt uncomfortable, despite her insisting that we were okay-it eventually became apparent that I was driving the wrong way at 190km/h.
There are other things I just don't know where to begin trying to be understanding. Why is it that me asking my family for things, and being perfectly accepting of 'no' as an answer, is imposing, but it's okay for Mum to just go ahead and reach into my neck and straighten my collar without asking me? Or worse yet, it's okay to start speaking to random strangers in Germany in English without asking them if they even speak English? These values seem strange to me, and I don't know where they come from. It must be a generation gap thing, because they certainly don't match my impression of Dutch or Australian culture. Then again, halimede always said there were huge differences between the cultures of Amsterdam and nearby Utrecht, so maybe it depends on where you are.
To be fair, I'm getting a certain amount of enjoyment of being around so much blood family. I grew up on the opposite side of the world from most of these people, so seeing them was a rare treat, maybe once every two or three years. I've only seen more than four or five of them at once on one previous occasion. The occasion in this case is my aunt's 70th birthday party, and some kind of commitment ceremony between my cousin and his partner/wife/coparent/thingie who he's been with for years-it was never quite clear to me what they called their relationship because the only language the two of them have in common is German. It was fun to dress up, too. All the men were in suits, except for the husband of my aunt from Ontario. I had to borrow a tie from the husband of my cool aunt from Zandvoort, the one that hopeforyou gets along with really well. (I'm not sure if these men are called "uncles"; I see family rarely enough to not know what they're called.) The women, too, were dressed up formally, and one or two of them were pretty hot. It's a pity we didn't have a language in common, and that they were there with their partners, and we were possibly related, and that they smoked.
The smoking might not have bothered me so much if there were fewer smokers in general. As is often the case for me in Europe, it seemed to me that everybody was smoking, while the locals look around puzzled when I say that, and said they can only see a handful of smokers. (Another odd thing: there are buildings in Germany where it's prohibited to smoke except in dining areas!) The smoke gets into my hair and into my clothes, so I stink of an ashtray even if I've only been in the room for a few seconds. Most of the people in the room where the big party was were old enough to have retired; I'm surprised their health allows them to smoke! And then there was the noise-at first I enjoyed watching my family being so enthusiastic to see each other, but by the end of the night it drove me nuts. It's the same enthusiasm I get constantly at my aunt's place, when three or four family members fuss over me, assuming they know what I want without even giving me a chance to finish my fucking question. And no, I do not eat meat, not even fish. And yes, I do eat cheese, I am not a vegan. And yes, I really do want just water, or just fruit juice, and not caffeinated fizzy shit or coffee or tea, let alone a third slice of fucking cake! Which part of "no, thank you" don't you understand??
I've snapped at Mum once or twice, usually after being woken up by shrieking giggling early in the morning, after being kept awake by snoring all night. Other than that, though, I've done all my cursing under my breath. I really do appreciate that people are doing their best to be accommodating and to make my stay comfortable; I just wish they'd fucking listen instead of assuming they know what I want. I feel like I'm being treated like an idiot. And I wish I could find a quiet space to myself every once in a while. Even the fucking toilet has a sensor over the door that turns on a radio when I go there. I'm really looking forward to being with my chosen family again. It may be having a few crises at the moment, but the people understand me, and I understand them, and they don't often make illogical assumptions, and there's a space that I can retreat to and not be disturbed. It's time I decorate it accordingly.