Dead Love

I didn’t feel like an orphan when my father died, I still had my mother.  Then my mother died and I still didn’t feel like an orphan.  I had my older sisters, my older brother and my younger brother. Some of them were near and some were far, nonetheless I had them all with me at all times. They were woven into my life in such an intricate and complex pattern I felt their presence, warmth and love no matter how alone I was. In my consciousness I would always have them, understood them and love them.  I never thought that anything could change that, no distance or separation, no marriage not even children could tear us apart.  We were an old carpet of shared memories, precious moments, traditions, values and love. 

When you are busy living your life, you don’t recognize and take note of things that are tearing your family apart. You don’t have the time or any reason to suspect any such thing. You don’t notice the loosen threads in the rug, the tiny holes that are visible to the naked eye, you don’t notice all the subtle signs and warnings that are telling you if things continue this way you won’t have a family anymore, you won't have the warm and fuzzy feeling that you feel now towards your family nor would they feel about you. 

And life is passing by, sometimes like a summer breeze and sometimes like a winter blizzard. There are marriages, children, in-laws, divorces, deaths, all that makes life life is happening to all of us. 

One day long after loosing both my parents, having relationship disasters with all my siblings, their husband or wives and their children, long after I stopped my relationship with a brother and sister, after loosing my older brother, long after that, one day I felt orphaned. It crushed me like an iceberg, I suddenly felt utterly alone. I had no one, no parents, no brothers or sisters.  That was the day my love died and I knew I would never have what I had lost. 

In a large family things tend to get out of hand, people become extremely emotional. Little jabs and insults brushed away in real time become infected sores.  Large and small insults and injuries are never properly dealt with so they fester. Everyone has their share of problems and misfortunes to deal with. People become selfish and self centered. Sometimes people change radically so even family members can’t recognize them.  There is so much blame that everyone shares a good deal. I don’t think a team of psychologists and psychiatrists could help a large family with such old problems, such complex relationships or strong personalities. 

So after I realized that I’m completely alone and I no longer have a real family it became time to decide if I’m going to continue pretending, or drop all pretexts and just cut all ties?

I don’t know, I will think long and hard before I decide, but it’s very difficult to be in this predicament. 

Chang & Tradition (Written July 2011)

     If I've learned one thing in my life is that change happens whether we like it or not. People change, seasons change, places change, laws change, every thing changes. Even mountains and oceans change, everything that exits changes. Another thing I've learned is that most people don't like change and the older they get they dislike change even more. I don't know why this is but the simple explanation would be that people are creatures of habit. Consistency is easy, comfortable and un-complicated. That's the reason we don't change our car insurance even if we know it's expensive, that's why people don't refinance their high interest rate mortgage loans, it's the reason people use the same incompetent accountant, lawyer or mechanic year after year. 

     In my place of work I hear this question almost every day. Customers ask "why do people change here so much?" I have worked in the same place for more than a year and so have a lot of other co-workers. But as soon as we get one new person we are asked that question. I don't know why it's so hard to understand that people change jobs. Some get fired, some get promoted, some quit and others retire. What is so complicated or unusual about this that perplexes people? It's because they don't like change. They want to see the same people every time they come in, doing the same job, standing in the same spot. 

     Who would still want cars with maximum speed of 45 miles per hour? Who doesn't like the convenience of cell phones, or the miracle of the Internet? Who hasn't benefited from all the great changes in the medical field and the amazing verity of life saving procedures? Just imagine if we didn't have all the modern technological discoveries that happened in the last 50 years that have greatly improved our quality of life. My mom used to comment all the time that our life was so much easier compared to hers in respect to the conveniences of domestic life, from shopping to cooking and cleaning to child rearing.  

     With all this said there is still a place for traditions and why we cherish them. In my opinion family traditions are created when we do something together as a family that is fun and enjoyable and it creates found memories. There is this family tradition that every summer when some of us go, or have gone to Armenian, we go to my sister's "dacha", Russian word for villa or summer house in English, and when it's time to go back to the city, we take a group picture sitting on the same sofa. Every year some of the people in the picture change depending on whoever happens to be visiting Armenia that year. There is always the home owners and maybe an odd person, a guest or a friend but the picture is always taken from the same angle on the same sofa. One year the sofa broke, I guess because we all had gained a few pounds from eating too much kabob. We laughed so much that some of us peed in our pants and that made us laugh even more.                        Those are precious memories and they are unforgettable and priceless.

     I like the tradition of having Thanksgiving dinner in my house every year. I think I will continue this tradition for as long as I can cook, maybe until I'm eighty. 
    We have Armenian Christmas at another one of my sisters house and we haven't missed it for 34 years. Her youngest son was born that night 34 years ago and that makes this tradition doubly fun. No matter where we are we always end up in her house on that night. 
     Another of my my sisters (I have seven of them lucky me) lives by a high school and every 4th of July they have fire works at nine o'clock. She cooks hamburgers, hot dogs and barbecue chicken and we always have plenty of beer. Each year the family grows bigger thanks to my nieces and nephews and now my son who has a little girl. The kids run around in the backyard, climb trees and walls, and eat lots of food. The grownups talk about life, work, blood pressure and our weight problems and everything else in between. We all have a wonderful time and go home tired and happy.  

     

I juts want our kids to continue our family traditions because that is the one thing that will bind us to each other. In this cold and ever changing world all we have that is genuine is family love. You can't buy it, rent it or borrow it. Let's leave something behind for our kids besides our national debt. Let's leave them our legacy of good old fashioned family traditions. After all blood is thicker than water.   

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Whatever Mineh

I have a blog called Driving Thoughts, thoughts that I had while  driving to work. My last post was months ago. Well I haven't been working so I haven't been driving much either. But funny as it may sound I still have thoughts. My thoughts may not be profound or original but they have to be expressed, if not I may blow up and self destruct. Some time ago I made a list of things I must do such as, do one creative thing every day, write a page about any thing every day, learn yoga, listen to new music, and the list goes on. Needless to say I haven't done any of them yet. You know, life happens regardless of lists. There are the usual mundane things like cooking and cleaning and doctor appointments and then there are the occasional family disasters one has to take care of. There is one other thing that prevents me from following my list. Whatever I want to do I think to myself that it's not good enough, it's not original, it's not deep enough, it's not brilliant enough, it's been done before, it's too pedestrian, basically I hate everything I do even before I do them. You might say so don't do anything . I agree, but then there is this nagging voice that keeps telling me "you must, if you don't you will regret the empty life you lived on your deathbed and it would be too late." I have to make a confession. I am addicted to the game Mah Jong. I have been playing different varieties of it for more than a year. I play for hours at a time. The beautiful thing about this game is that you could go to the end of it and if it's not solved you can back track or undo your steps and correct the mistakes that you made and solve the puzzle. You can try as many times as you want until you solve the puzzle, you can even reset the whole game and start at the beginning. If only life could be like that. I know that I would go back and change my college major, I would not start smoking, I would keep track of my old friends, I would take more risks, I would learn to surf, I would be a better parent. Has this ever happen to you? you apply for a job and the hiring manager is your school mate from grade school that you and your friends made fun of? Or you train a new employee so well that she becomes your boss in a year? These are the times that you could hit the reset button and right the wrong move you made, but alas life doesn't give you second chances. Something to think about, No?