My Family is My Life

This blog topic came at a perfect time. Not only did Thanksgiving just pass, where families all over the country come together, but I went to my grandma's house in New Hampshire where my mom's entire side of the family spent the holiday. My family has not had Thanksgiving with my mom's side of the family in about 10 years because of the travel distance; we usually stay in New Jersey and have dinner with my dad's side of the family. However, this year I was ecstatic for Thanksgiving! I absolutely love my mom's side of the family, and I was thrilled to be spending the holiday with them. We only see them about 4 times a year, so going there for Thanksgiving was a big deal!
There were 17 of us staying at my grandma's and celebrating Thanksgiving together, and my grandma hadn't put together a Thanksgiving dinner in about 15 years. With this being said, the festivities of the day were quite interesting. My uncle from Pittsburgh and his wife have 2 daughters. I love them all to death, but my uncle and aunt always have their own agendas that they need to stick to. This is how we ended up spending 2 hours at the beach on Thanksgiving Day. Not only was it Thanksgiving, but it was raining and freezing cold. The day before Thanksgiving, my uncle decided to plan a trip to the beach the next day. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, and the weather was horrible, no one really wanted to go to the beach anymore. My uncle's daughters did not want to go unless all of their cousins came along, and I felt bad seeing them upset, so we all piled in the car and went to the beach. Everyone was getting uptight while we were at the beach, especially myself, who now felt bad that my the only person at home helping my grandma prepare dinner were my parents. I had a vision in my head of everyone helping with dinner and enjoying each other's company, not standing on a New Hampshire beach freezing in the rain with the whole family not being all together. With this conflict brewing inside of me, I tried to deal with it effectively. Instead of saying something that I was going to regret, I kept telling myself "This is just the way my uncle is" and, "It's Thanksgiving and I don't want to ruin the whole mood of the day by yelling and acting immature." I held my feelings and got through the 2 hours at the beach. It was a lose-win situation. We had to give in to my uncle's idea to keep the peace. However, my cousins all had a lot of fun, so looking back at it all, it was worth it to not have said anything.
When we arrived back at my grandma's house, she had the turkey out of the oven, and it had only been cooking for 3 hours. My mom was trying to tell my grandma nicely that the turkey wasn't done, but my grandma was frazzled with everything else that needed to get time in the oven. My mom, my aunt, and I looked at each other wishing my aunt (who lives 20 minutes down the road) had just had Thanksgiving at her like she had for the past 10 years. However, my mom, my aunt, and I did not want to be blemishers. We knew my grandma had been slaving over the oven all day and that all she really needed was us to appreciate the hard work she was doing to make a delicious meal. Thankfully, the only part of the turkey that wasn't fully cooked was the dark meat. When my dad carved the turkey, he just put the dark meat back into the oven, and everything was fine.
During dinner, there was some small talk that took place, but for the most part we talked about something I always find us talking about when my mom's family gets together: the past. I am fortunate enough to say that none of my relatives have ever been divorced. Everyone is in a vital marriage, with wonderful children as well. I am the oldest grandchild on my mom's side, so when we talk about the past it's usually including when me and my brother (who is only 18 months younger than me) were little. Talking about this almost always brings up the subject of my Uncle Mike, my mom's brother who died in 1993 of leukemia, and my grandpa who died of Alzheimer's in 2002. Both of these people were very special to everyone on my mom's side of the family, and it shows in the way we talk about them. I know it might sound morbid that we talk about deceased family members, but we don't talk about them and cry. We talk about them and laugh at remembering all the fun and funny times we had with both of them. Every time we talk about them, I always hear a story that I had never heard before. The language that is used in these conversations is heart-warming, and the words, thoughts, and emotions expressed show the love and memories we have for them.
Even with all this love that flows through my mom's family, there is one thing that is forbidden to being discussed: politics. At this point, everyone knows not to mention a word about anything dealing with politics. My parents are conservative Republicans. Not something I am too proud to share, since I lean the other way, along with my aunt and uncles. In the past when politics has been brought up, it has not gone well. Someone, usually my mother, ends up storming out of the room or getting so frustrated with her siblings that she starts yelling. I think a majority of the problem is the difference is speech communities. My aunt is a teacher and an environmentalist, therefore she agrees with the liberal side of issues. My uncle is a doctor at a Veterans hospital, therefore working for the government. He leans to the left as well. My dad is an OBGYN, therefore him and my mom lean toward the republican side of things because of abortion (which my father has never and will never do), medical malpractice insurance, and not having universal health care. All four of the people I just mentioned realizes that they will get into a screaming match if politics is brought up. Therefore, they decided to manage this conflict by agreeing to not bring it up. If this topic does come up, kitchen-sinking quickly occurs before the discussion gets out of control.
I really hope that going to New Hampshire and celebrating Thanksgiving with my mom’s side of the family becomes an ongoing tradition. When everyone is together we make memories that we will talk about forever. I’ll leave you with a quote that my 9 year-old and 7 year-old cousins made regarding Thanksgiving weekend: “This was the BEST Thanksgiving ever! All of our cousins were here, we got to go to the beach, and Grammy made a really good dinner!” Hearing this quote alone changed my attitude toward the little bit of stresses that came with Thanksgiving weekend. I realized that my little cousins had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I am thankful I was there to be a part of it.
According to Dr. Rick Peterson, a professor at Virgina Tech, "Researchers have discovered a strong link between communication patterns and satisfaction with family relationships" (Noller & Fitzpatrick, 1990). This applies to my relationship with my family. We communicate effectively, both verbally and nonverbally, and accept each others' opinions and ideas, except when it comes to politics. It is with this positive communication that I find joy and comfort in being around my family. Dr. Peterson goes on to talk about more types of communication within families, such as instrumental and affective, in his article http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/family/350-092/350-092.html. My family definitely has affective communication by sharing our emotions and passions with each other. Throughout my life, I have never had doubts about my family. No matter what I am going through I know they are always there for me to support me or comfort me.

oh Boys...

"Men and women speak different languages." This is a statement that I agree with entirely. Both sexes interpret conversations and situations in different ways. This is when misunderstandings occur, especially in relationships. From personal experience, I can say that many differences occur when comparing men and women's communication between each other and between their own genders.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp4u3zHabJg&feature=related This clip from Everybody Loves Raymond portrays how genders communicate with one another. Even though Debra does not have a close relationship with the teacher, she begins revealing private information and venting her feelingd to her. I believe she took this action because women understand each others feelings. Women share personal information with each other, and it makes them feel better. Personally, I know that their are things that I would rather talk to my girl friends about than my boyfriend, such as things that are bothering us that may seem stupid to a guy. For example, one of my friends has started to become way too clingy for my liking. Her constant phone calls, texs, and IM's are getting on my nerves so much that I never answer her and I try to avoid her at all costs. I told my boyfriend about this, and he thinks that I am being mean; he doesn't understand where I am coming from, and I can't understand why he doesn't unerstand my view of the situation. However, when I talk to my girl friends about it, they completely understand my annoyance with her and give me advice about what I should say if I confront her about the whole situation. My girl friends are much more helpful to me in this situation. Of course I love my boyfriend to death, but talking to him about this situation just gets me annoyed at him, so I tend to steer clear of bringing it up around him. The Everybody Loves Raymond clip also shows how men and women communicate with each other in a relationship. As Ray is sitting there silently, Debra asks him why he can't talk about anything and why he is so close-minded. Debra begins to vent her emotions when Ray does not give her a straight answer. By asking Ray this question, Debra wants to know why he can't express his emotions clearly; why he can't put himself out there. Many women ponder this same question. When it comes down to expressing personal feelings, guys want no part in it. My boyfriend will be the first person to admit that, when it comes to romance, he is not good at expressing his emotions; whereas I am a hopeless romantic. When my boyfriend brings me flowers I melt, and it means that much more because he's usually not too romantic. However, a lot of times I really want him to be express his feelings, even though I know he probably won't. Then I get all moody, and he doesn't understand why. Of course I do the typical girl thing, where you assume that he should know why, and you get even more mad when he doesn't figure it out on his own. I believe that this is definitely one of the biggest and most common misunderstandings in relationship communication between men and women.

Moving On...

Lindsey and I had been best friends since seventh grade – it would be fair to say that we were inseparable. We would spend countless hours at each other’s houses, and her dad occasionally even called me his daughter. When we arrived in high school, nothing really changed between us. We were still best friends, and everything seemed pretty much perfect – that is until the Fall of sophomore year of high school.
Lindsey had been dating Regi for about 3 years, and they had been having some problems by this point. Regi was very clingy, and Lindsey was getting annoyed with him so she broke it off. Lindsey started to hang out with another girl, Alyssa, who was gothic and hung out with people that I did not feel comfortable hanging out with. Even at lunch, Lindsey would go and sit with Alyssa and leave me with all my guy friends. I couldn’t understand what was happening between us, or what I had done wrong. She had always been my best friend, but now she wanted to hang out with someone she knew I did not want to be around. I knew that Alyssa was bad news. Eventually, I began to not really care if Lindsey didn’t sit with me at lunch. I had my guy friends who I decided I had much more fun with anyway. They knew how pissed I had been about her antics, and they let me vent to them pretty much everyday.
Lindsey and I were becoming very distant from one another, but she still thought that I was her best friend. She would come up to me in the hall and try to act like everything was fine between us. I couldn’t do that, so I would usually just blow her off or give one word answers to the conversation. Then one day she told me she really needed to talk to me about something. She seemed pretty serious so before homeroom we walked through the halls together, not really saying much. Then she stopped, looked at me, and pulled her sleeve up. There were cuts all over her wrist. I didn’t know what to do. We both started crying, and she asked me to promise not to tell anyone. Obviously, this is a promise that I couldn’t keep. She went to class, and I went to find Regi and my boyfriend, James. I told them and they were floored. All day in school I remember being very worked up and not knowing what I was going to do. That night, I went crying to my mom and dad and told them. My dad told me I needed to tell Lindsey’s dad, but I didn’t know how. I was a sophomore in high school – I didn’t know how to deal with something like this. So my dad called Lindsey’s parents, and they were shocked and upset with their daughter.
I knew that Lindsey was really changing for the worst when she told me about a concert she went to with Alyssa. It was some outdoor hardcore, screamo/gothic concert, and she met a guy there, Rich. I knew who Rich was. I had gone to elementary school and high school with him. He was always very disrespectful and a problem child throughout school. I even remember him one time throwing a chair at a teacher. Well, you can imagine my reaction when Lindsey told me that upon meeting him she had had sex with him in the woods at the concert. I was disgusted. I tried to tell her how wrong that is and how much of a dirt ball Rich was, but she wouldn’t have it. I wanted nothing to do with her anymore, and I think she was beginning to realize that.
The final straw was when I received a phone call from Lindsey’s dad asking if I knew where she was. She was missing. I told him that I she had told me she was going to Rich’s house after school, but I didn’t know where he lived. I began sobbing. Even though I was ready to move away from Lindsey, I still cared about her and I didn’t know why she was doing this to herself.
Before long, her parents ended up sending Lindsey to a hospital. She was there for a few weeks. She called me one day to let me know where she was and that she was fine and thanking me for being such a good friend. I accepted the apology then, but upon her arrival home we both knew that things had changed drastically between us. There was no way to repair everything that had happened. Lindsey really wanted to try to fix all the broken pieces of our friendship, but I just couldn’t do it. I needed to move on and get away from the relationship I had with her. Being around her and dealing with all the uncertainty and drama of our relationship had been mentally and emotionally draining on me. I couldn’t have imagined going through it all again, and that’s what I was scared of happening if I allowed myself to stay in the relationship.
To this day, Lindsey still tries to get in touch with me, and people who have talked to her tell me that she says how she wished me and her were still friends. It is hard to hear these things because of the closeness we once had, and the memories that we share. However, I know that I had to get out of my relationship with her to allow myself to grow and prosper in my own life.