Interesting Day

I wrote this a week or two, and never published it.

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I've had a pretty radical day. I met with one of my favorite professors about getting him to write letters of recommendation for my Graduate School Application process. And talking with him I realize I do have a lot of skill sets beside what I've learned in school, and that I've learned enough in school that if I did want to change horses mid-stream I'm pretty well prepared to do it. That being said, I still really want to be a speech language pathologist. I realize that it probably seems kind of silly to decide what you want to do and use a promise you made to yourself when you were six as a guiding light for it. But it's one of the few memories that is so clear in my mind from that time of my life, and I still feel very strongly that this is what I want to do.

I won't get into the details of what I feel like my skills are, but I'm actually feeling pretty optimistic about the future and my life in general.

I've always been a pretty contemplative soul, and today in my English (different professor then the above one) class it just fed my fire. Currently we're talking about Shakespeare's "King Lear". The professor brings up such wonderful points. Maybe they're plainly evident to other people, but to me this stuff is pretty hot. He made a statement about King Lear's request to hear how much his daughter's love him, and stated that it's an insecurity all parents struggle with and that on some level all parents do it to their kids at some point. Although usually not in such an ugly way as he did. I almost wonder if my parents did that with me when they asked me to not make some mistakes that some of my siblings made. If anything I think how many talks I had like that as a child is why I'm so contemplative. I got used to watching people and trying to learn from what others have done. I like to think it's a good habit.

But there's a flip side to this. I'm the youngest, and as the professor points out often the youngest is the "favorite" they get spoiled in lots of ways that the older children ever did. I know that my older siblings have felt this before. I think the only one who I've never hear call me spoiled is Joe. He's always understood better then the others what it's like. In a lot of ways we were the youngest together, he was the youngest of the first 5 and then there was me. But back to the topic, there are some major bonuses to being the youngest. As the youngest I got my parents at the top of their game in some ways and the bottom in other ways. They were more confident that if they let me have a lot of free rein that I'd still love them and listen to them. On another note they also knew that in a lot of ways I'd be raised a lot by my siblings and so didn't see the need to spend time with me about some stuff.

But I have a pretty convincing set of evidence for why I'm not loved anymore then my siblings. And I'm not sure how much they all understand it. My eldest brother left home when I was 5 years old. I don't have many memories where the whole family is gathered together. I was too young for most of them. For a lot of my life it was just my parents and me. And it was good. We were comfortable with each other. I kept them appraised of what was going on in my life, and other then not dating in high school they were pretty happy with what I was doing with my life.

Things changed at the dropping of a hat. Anytime one or more of my siblings could visit (with or without their own family) the routine changed. My father is a man who loves his routine, and having lived with him when he was able to have more of a routine then when all my siblings are home, I can honestly say that he is much more relaxed when he has his routine. My mother, who loves her routine almost as much as my father does, just in different ways always changed it too. And I won't lie, we were all always relieved when the vacations were over and we could get back to our routine.

Despite that love of our routine we always looked forward to those visits with special glee. My family is spread out, and probably will always be, so those rare chances to see family were always special. But even more then that when Ed lived just across town but not at home, it seemed to me that we would stop what we are doing to help him if he needed it or spend time with him when he chose to visit the house, so I don't think distance is the only factor that made these visits special.

Now I'm an adult, and I'm starting to wrap my head around the idea that I'm no longer part of the routine. This is hard since in a lot of ways I'm still my mothers favorite helper in the kitchen or for other errands around town because of my familiarity with this town, house and particularly her kitchen. But it's weird I've noticed some of the patterns still exist. Obviously the routines are still there, with my siblings almost all of them have children now. They're just in a different place in their life. I was able to observe mom and dad get little tidbits of time and small interactions with my siblings throughout the break. My parents are still willing to drop everything to spend some time with their kids. And they still can't spend that one on one time with all of us. It's just impossible. But they try, and they love it when they get it.

So I guess the point is, yes I was probably spoiled a bit with laxer rules and some cool stuff. But I see now that "love" is the hardest attribute to define and only grows within the soil of time. In my family it is spread around as far as my parents can spread it, and where they see it's needed the most. I don't fully understand, but I get a sense of what a treat it is for my brothers, sisters and all of their spouses to be able to spend some time together and have some quality adult time. And that is the loving gift my parents give now, is the understanding adult friendship that they need. They've never begrudged the time or the interruption of their live, I think they just wish that they could give more time.