To Family or Not To Family

A few weeks ago we flew down to Oakland to spend time with my partner, Wonono’s, kids and their families.  We were there for a week; he has three daughters and two grandchildren.  We stayed with one daughter, and visited with everyone else.  Much of the visit was truly enjoyable, but at night I found myself longing to be home in my own house and the peace that it affords.  I also felt both guilty and confused.  I quickly dispelled the idea that my discomfort had anything to do with spending the week with his children and not my own.  I often feel the same way in Bend, when we visit my daughters and their families.  Lest I seem inhuman, I also long to see all of them when I am home, and often feel sad that we don’t live closer to one another.  OK.: fact. When we are visiting either place, each day is filled with activities, and, well, truthfully, noise.  He and I spend a lot of time alone, he in his office, me in mine or reading on our comfortable living room couch.  Neither of us is used to constant activity any more, and perhaps that is as it should be.  I am beginning to understand why many folks our age choose to move closer to their kids. That way they can drop in and out, engage in the activities they choose, and spend as much time as they want in their own quiet, and peaceful homes.  That seems a great way to ‘family’ to me, and a move we intend to make in the next couple of years.  Since we can only afford to live in one of these ‘family’ locations, we don’t have to face the conundrum of ‘which family’ to choose.  Still I struggle.  I have always been a social person, but in the last five years or so, I find that I spend a lot of time alone, by choice.  I am even relieved sometimes that my partner is out working and I have a block of hours of total silence.  It is a change that makes me uneasy, but I have to admit it is real.  I need quiet.  I need peace.  I need lots of time when I don’t engage with anyone.  When I meet my younger daughter and her two little boys in Seattle later in the week to tool around for three days, I remind myself that the boys will be perfectly happy swimming in the hotel pool, where my daughter and I can chat, or read.  Phew.  I finally understand why my mother sometimes wore an expression somewhat like a prune when she and my father would visit.  She, too, must have found the constant activity that made up my home life exhausting, and it had nothing to do with her heart condition as she claimed, or not much.  But we rarely talk about the changes we undergo as we age, especially the internal ones, and maybe we have to.  If my mom and I had talked about what she was experiencing on her visits, perhaps the changes I am now going through would not have been as difficult.  Although it feels very odd and revealing to write about them, it strikes me as important to begin such a conversation. This is my first stab.  I’m sure I will revisit the subject in another blog, when I have come to a place of peace about them myself.