{"id":5828,"date":"2019-12-28T02:07:31","date_gmt":"2019-12-28T02:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edasofia.com\/?p=5828"},"modified":"2019-12-28T02:07:31","modified_gmt":"2019-12-28T02:07:31","slug":"celebrations-with-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edasofia.com\/en\/celebrations-with-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Joy, and the thousand other emotions of spending time with family."},"content":{"rendered":"

If You Think You’re Enlightened, Go Spend a Week with Your Family.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>

<\/p>Ram Dass<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Family <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Family, I whisper to myself as I sit here, back home, eight\nmeters away from all of them who are having something to eat and laughing out\nloud. My four cousins, my aunties & their girlfriends; Mumma is somewhere\nwashing dishes and I\u2019m waiting for the coffee to brew. My family is Latin, and\nthis may explain part of the reason why we have (not always want but have) to\nspend so much time together; because if not it is just weird. Because, how can\nyou be around for one celebration and not spend the week leading up to it and\nafter it together?… preparing, gossiping, laughing, fighting, hugging,\ndiscussing\u2026 Yes, we -Latins- are not exactly the clich\u00e9 they\u2019ve made of us, but\nquite close. More complex and yet quite close. And because this is my reality,\nit is the only place from which I can write, biased despite my desire to be\nimpartial.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I sit here, my usual weird self, eight meters away\nfrom them, enjoying their laughter almost as much as this tropical rain that parts\nus allowing me to write and be here by myself. I love my family, but ooh, I\nadore my alone time, and when I can have a bit of both is when holidays just\nwork out perfectly. Eighty, twenty -exactly as the Pareto Principle-\u2026 the first\nbeing -naturally- the rain, and alone time; books, writing, walks, podcasts\n& black coffee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is hard: coming back home and suddenly feeling a teenage again -our worst and very probably most insecure years-. You\u2019ve changed and reshaped your life at least twenty times, nonetheless, everything here seems to be stuck in time. So, of course, you are the one who is different, ungrateful, changed. But, aren\u2019t we all changing? Isn\u2019t change good? It obviously is scary. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As time has passed, I\u2019ve come to understand that this feeling is not inherent only to me. I\u2019ve come to learn, listen and experience how every single one of us has a complicated, eccentric, unique family relationship, and each one has also found different ways to cope, love, be present and also allow themselves alone time, rest time, recharge time. Family, if we were a bit wiser and more eloquent, should be a concept with thousand different words to explain it. Each one with its nuances; like there are \u201cwhites\u201d for Eskimos. Maybe that would free us from fitting in in one single familiar arrangement; from feeling odd, left out, alone. We could choose something that would mean helicopter-family, dysfunctional-family, happy-but-with-tendencies-to-depression-family, overachiever-family, etc. There is no fixed concept for family, as there is none for being ok, for feeling happy, sad & joy. There are so many ways and shapes to these emotions.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Family, I repeat to myself as I turn around to look at them -all so different- as I hold back from walking there to hug them. Family, and I can already feel a tumultuous array of emotions surging from deep within my body and crawling all the way up trying to get out, to say it all: to compress in a couple of words all the love I\u2019ve ever felt but also all the fear, all the sadness, all the frustration. Family is a powerful word because it has no defined meaning, because it may as well be empty for some or full of grudge for others; because it is a movable concept which depends on thousands of tiny circumstances that start shaping it since before we are born. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Family celebrations and relationships are a tricky\nsubject to write about because each experience is so different, that having a\nsingle concept to encapsulate it is quite frankly simplistic and a bit strange.\nThere must be someone in the world -in some awesome language- a word that\nmeans, loving and hating your family all at the same time: longing to be with\nyour family and dreading to be with them, in the exact same minute. Especially\nwhen you are back for a major celebration and you haven\u2019t seen them in a while.\nWhen you can look back to everything you\u2019ve missed about them, but also fear\neverything you\u2019ve managed to get away from in order to become who you are. If\nthat concept existed, it would have been the title of this piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Celebrations spent with family <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Celebrations spent with family are more than a double-edged sword; they are like one of those ninja stars: sleek and beautiful, but also incredibly sharp and deadly in so many ways. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m always marvelled by the power the people closest to our heart exert upon us. How they give us so much, shaping who we become, but can also leave us with deep routed wounds that are so hard to heal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve grown surrounded by family celebrations, Sunday\nlunch with my grandparents and cousins, and summers spent in a full house\ntwenty-four seven. Now I live 17,000 km away from them and often I wonder what\nthe meaning of these oceans I decided to put between us is. I\u2019ve been lucky\nenough and more than privileged to grow up in a \u201cnormal\u201d household, full of\nlaughter, hugs, hard work and discipline (so much of it). And I can say,\nwithout having to lie, that I love my family deeply, so much that it often\nhurts in places I still don\u2019t know how to heal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here I am, back home for my parents 60th birthday and visiting most of my cousins. I\u2019m here to enjoy being surrounded by them, but also -and some of you might understand this too well-, to show them who have I become, to answer questions and try to clear their doubts. I am back, a self-assured-happy-woman when I\u2019m at home and the same insecure full-of-doubts-girl that left. Trying to prove herself, feeling an indecent need to convince everyone -especially myself-, that I am enough, that what I do is valid, that the life I\u2019ve chosen is also ok.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And between our conversations, I can truly feel their care but also the doubts around the life I\u2019ve chosen to live. Because they remember when I used to pee my knickers and hide them behind doors, but they do not adhere to my current views of the world, nor do they want to sit down and discuss them. It\u2019s about being together. And trying to get closer to me, they might recommend new diets or new ways to approach my work; and trying to feel safer I sometimes have to walk away. We are both, stupidly so, trying to connect in our awkward ways, in the only way we know\u2026 Trying to say \u201cI love you\u201d utilizing a million more unnecessary words. Focusing on things that are not even important. It is not what we\u2019ve decided to do that matters, but the fact that we are here, that we still enjoy being together, that we have shared a history and there are things that connect us in deeper ways than our jobs, hairstyles, gender preferences or any of those visual superficialities we\u2019ve put so much weight on. Because maybe that is the dream: family as a place of solace, safety, love, acceptance. And it will start when someone decides to rise above (or to the side to reject social structures) and truly see the humans they have grown with -it tied by blood-; standing strong in their truths, having worked and discovered who they are, who they are being; becoming. Learning to be with the trouble, which is sometimes so beautiful and others so messy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So maybe the gist to family celebrations, and family in\ngeneral, lies as always in us. In the individual, in spending time with\nourselves, in truly nurturing that eighty per cent I treasure so much, which is\nwhat allows us to get to know who we are and make peace with who we are becoming.\nThe time spent with ourselves, reaffirming our values, our beliefs, what moves\nus; is what may allow us to come back to these people who saw us when we were peeing\nourselves and face them strong but also full of compassion. Soft enough to let\neverything that doesn\u2019t serve us slip down and fall to the ground, and\ncompassionate enough to truly listen, to open our arms and give them all that\nthey have given us and more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Family as a tool for personal growth and deep understanding. Family as a school for difference, for acceptance and peace. Maybe it is exactly there that everything starts; where we can go back to learn, to challenge ourselves, to actually check how enlightened we have become\u2026 and keep working on it. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Text by Eda Sofia C.B (A.KA: me) for Gippslandia<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gippslandia is a quarterly magazine in newspaper format, for, and about, the Latrobe Valley & Gippsland. It\u2019s an ever-optimistic take on regional, national and global issues, in a local context. Oh, and it\u2019s free.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is hard: coming back home and suddenly feeling a teenage again -our worst and very probably most insecure years-. You\u2019ve changed and reshaped your life at least twenty times, nonetheless, everything here seems to be stuck in time. So, of course, you are the one who is different, ungrateful, changed. But, aren\u2019t we all changing? Isn\u2019t change good? It obviously is scary. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,13],"tags":[288,289,290,291,292,293],"class_list":["post-5828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","category-published-work","tag-celebrations-at-home","tag-celebrations-with-family","tag-family","tag-family-celebrations","tag-family-relationships","tag-insecurities-around-family","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edasofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edasofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edasofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edasofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edasofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edasofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edasofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edasofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edasofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edasofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}