The annual summer family visit has been underway for a few days, continuing through the weekend. I have been doing a bit of an inventory around why it always gets me so emotionally dragged to have family contact. I don't even really know why I visited this summer, yet. I sometimes know more in retrospect, and it's become something of a habit now to head east as soon as my school year is over.
Brainstorming what seems to get under my skin:
Old and physically not very healthy people who are living extremely narrow lives lacking in what I judge as interest, adventure, curiosity, or being engaged with the world.
How I disappear whenever I am visiting, as the exchanges always end up being about them, and me just holding space and listening. Honestly, though, that's sometimes a relief, since anything I say about my own life or experience just meets with blankness.
A lot of denial. I have such a hard time sitting with people who are pretending everything is okay. There's no way to have a real or authentic conversation about everything. EVERYTHING IS FINE AT ALL TIMES and I find that exhausting. I guess trust is just permanently low.
A sense of grinding loneliness that I can't do anything about. I feel a weird guilt for just dropping in and doing a short visit and then leaving. As if I am somehow supposed to be rescuing people. This is obviously codependent nonsense, but it is like "survivor guilt." I escaped. I have paid various debts in order to escape. But when I come back there's a bizarre pull, back into the dysfunctional family system.
I had a dream last night where I remember in part that my employer was talking with someone on the phone about how great a teacher I am. I was intensely curious who was on the other end of the phone call but my employer wouldn't tell me. I got super angry and started yelling "IF THIS PERSON WERE HIRING, WHAT WOULD THEY BE HIRING FOR????" and my employer was really taken aback. He asked, "Is everything okay? That behavior just doesn't seem like you." I suddenly realized that the reason I was so agitated was that my father had died. So I think a lot of the heaviness and shadow of this visit has to do with last year, and how I ended up here from early March through mid-July.
Every encounter feels like a burden. Fortunately, it will ease up this weekend into Monday. I'll see a best friend on Monday and then get back on the road Tuesday, headed into the fun part of the summer, finally, including an extended trip with M.
Meanwhile, feeling defensive and skeptical.