Farming the Past

“We’re all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that’s all.” 
― John Hughes, The Breakfast Club Script

I had one of those conversations tonight – the ones that crawl into the back of your jaw and simply sit there and marinate. A relative of mine whom I hadn’t spoken with literally, in decades, phoned me after an initial volley online. For five of the 45 minutes, we paraphrased our autobiographies since circa 1985. The rest of the time was spent discussing normalcy – or the lack thereof – and our family.

My family is very big. I have more first cousins than I can count, and many of them I have never met or have not seen since I was a young child. We were a farm family, and I can recall that farmhouse contained piles of sewing fabric, yelling and screaming. I also keenly remember a grandfather clock whose cadence of the pendulum kept time with the turmoil stirred by the home’s various inhabitants.

My relative and I found mutual agreement on the following: our family is bizarre, we are the fruit of our family, and that spoiled experiences do not necessarily yield spoiled fruit. The discussion for me was juicy – not in that I found any delight in the traumas of family members but in that peeling back the layers and deconstructing the family dynamic some truths seemed to unfold. Past bitterness and resentment held by relatives became understandable. Spite and malice observed from others began to resemble hurt and fear instead. I saw a shift in me blaming the person to blaming the environment those persons found themselves in. Patterns and cycles of mental illness emerged along with failed coping mechanisms of alcohol, reckless relationships, withdrawal (stuffing our emotions/feelings) and other poor decisions. For the first time, the curtain was being pulled back, at least for me.

And as I placed the mirror in front of my family, I also found it staring directly back at me. For so long I have pompously declared that I’m the normal one and everyone else around me is odd, crazy, bizarre. I say this as I sit alone after having pushed so many others away. I’ve blamed a father, a rape, a bridge, PTSD, a spouse.  And the crazy thing is that it hasn’t helped me one iota, and I’ve done all of this blaming while hiding it. I’ve been in counseling off and on for five years and yet life teeters on shambles. I can’t seem to grasp happiness and contentment. I continually let down my immediate family. Yet I believe I’m the normal one?

In times of anxiety and disarray, my relative shouts, “Where’s my base?” Where’s my grounding? No, we’re all floundering to various extents. We don’t have crazy families, we are part of crazy families. And there’s nothing bizarre about that. Even so, we don’t have to let outside influences define us.

You can look at a grandfather clock and be terrified by it; it can be obnoxiously loud and rattle the room – and it seemingly never stops. Or, you can take it apart to see how it works and be marveled, gaining a whole new perspective and with understanding.

Thanks to a reacquaintance, I got to be a clocksmith tonight.