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magid(No, not *those* sorts of activities!)
I made my reservations last night for flights to/from Norfolk, Virginia, for a most-of-week family reunion mostly with people I barely know.
To say I have reservations is an understatement.
Some of the relatives I know best will not be coming, for one reason or another. I'd hoped to get a chance to catch up, but their lives are good and busy and do not allow this week of hanging around just then.
Of the people coming, there are my parents, who are good people, bu t large doses of them seem to leave me uncomfortably like the sullen 15-year-old me, even when the (more) grown-up me inside is shouting that I don't have to act like that. There are also many relatives I have met 0-1 times in my life. I have no great hol es in my life that these family members (some on the order of second cousin once removed) are likely to fill. I'd not choose to have a vacation with them, except that Dutiful Oldest Child still hasn't figured out how to not feel so guilty telling her moth er she doesn't want to do this when she knows her mother wants her to do it, so she caves, though there are other things she'd rather do with her vacation time than go to North Carolina's Outer Banks in hurricane season.
I believe I am going to be the o nly religious fanatic in residence, so I get to figure out what food I'll be schlepping with me (luckily, no Shabbat is involved). I suspect I'll focus on proteins and some starch, figuring I'll be able to buy veggies and fruit there. Still, a week of not-cooked/cold foods is not appealing, especially when everyone else is likely to be going out for interesting restaurant fare (this is my whine, I can assume that all restaurant food will be interesting and yummy).
I have no idea what activities other than eating and socializing have been planned. I got a AAA guidebook, which should help with suggestions for local attractions, but I have the sneaking suspicion that this would'v e been a great time to read the Robin Hobbs books, if I hadn't already gulped them down this spring. I don't know if anyone will be interested in games, so I'm not sure if I should bring any/what to bring.
Feh. I wish I were looking forward to the one vacation I actually have planned this summer.
t
I made my reservations last night for flights to/from Norfolk, Virginia, for a most-of-week family reunion mostly with people I barely know.
To say I have reservations is an understatement.
Some of the relatives I know best will not be coming, for one reason or another. I'd hoped to get a chance to catch up, but their lives are good and busy and do not allow this week of hanging around just then.
Of the people coming, there are my parents, who are good people, bu t large doses of them seem to leave me uncomfortably like the sullen 15-year-old me, even when the (more) grown-up me inside is shouting that I don't have to act like that. There are also many relatives I have met 0-1 times in my life. I have no great hol es in my life that these family members (some on the order of second cousin once removed) are likely to fill. I'd not choose to have a vacation with them, except that Dutiful Oldest Child still hasn't figured out how to not feel so guilty telling her moth er she doesn't want to do this when she knows her mother wants her to do it, so she caves, though there are other things she'd rather do with her vacation time than go to North Carolina's Outer Banks in hurricane season.
I believe I am going to be the o nly religious fanatic in residence, so I get to figure out what food I'll be schlepping with me (luckily, no Shabbat is involved). I suspect I'll focus on proteins and some starch, figuring I'll be able to buy veggies and fruit there. Still, a week of not-cooked/cold foods is not appealing, especially when everyone else is likely to be going out for interesting restaurant fare (this is my whine, I can assume that all restaurant food will be interesting and yummy).
I have no idea what activities other than eating and socializing have been planned. I got a AAA guidebook, which should help with suggestions for local attractions, but I have the sneaking suspicion that this would'v e been a great time to read the Robin Hobbs books, if I hadn't already gulped them down this spring. I don't know if anyone will be interested in games, so I'm not sure if I should bring any/what to bring.
Feh. I wish I were looking forward to the one vacation I actually have planned this summer.
t
no subject
Date: 2002-07-12 08:41 am (UTC)I know, you need a book deadline that week! ;)
no subject
Date: 2002-07-12 08:49 am (UTC)And it's too late for a work deadline; I'd asked for the time off some weeks ago when we were all asked about time off over the summer, and now I have nonrefundable tickets, too.
Plus I really don't think I want to deal with disappointing my mom. I should get over bending my life in uncomfortable ways to make her happy (for some value of happy), but I'm not there yet, and certainly not for this trip.
Wolf, well, he manages this stuff differently than I do.
=
no subject
Date: 2002-07-12 12:12 pm (UTC)Regarding living life to parental expectations, they made it pretty much impossible when I was a teen and I finally adjusted to this when I was in my 20s. Not slipping back into Awkward Teen mode can be difficult around them; they still expect it from us, over 12 years since the younger of us left teen-hood. It took me a very active force-of-present-will to not do it the first time I did it, and it got easier after that because I knew how it felt to be Adult in their presence.
I am not the man our parents hoped I'd grow up to be. In some ways I'm nowhere near as good, in other ways I think I do far better. I don't think they talk about me or my profession with as much pride as they talk about you and yours. This of course sticks the expectations on you. Me, well, I'm the one they cringe about.
You're not a failure, this much I can state authoritatively. You are one of the best human beings I know; our family generation is talented in various and many ways and you are no exception to this. Just don't try to compare yourself to the three Js, those three are a tough act to match.
*hug*‡
no subject
Date: 2002-07-12 01:09 pm (UTC)BTW, middle J will not be there; I believe he'll be traveling in Asia or something, going to extreme mathematical events.
You know youngest J far better than I do, actually, since you two are so close in age and tended to hang out more.
And yes, oldest J is fun, and would game, but I don't know which games are appropriate for his girls...
And I guess that some of the people I've met more than once I've seen far enough apart in time that I don't really have any idea who they are. I've met them in social situations of one sort or another, and the public face is on.