I Hate Family Time

[sarahsfeelings]

Whenever I have to spend an hour or two with my family at my grandparents' house, it's torure. Cause I have nothing in common with anyone and I feel like all of them actually hate me just like I do. No one has anything to say to one another and they have nothing to talk about except for stupid gossip! And I'm sure that they're holding so many things and so much emotion to themselves and if some fight ever happens it'll be like opening a 100-year-old can of rotten worms.

I feel like every family is like this but still...it's annyoing and I feel like I'm invisible.

[mvillarreal]

Can you say more? Is it just that they don't have anything interesting to talk about, or is there more to it?

[sarahsfeelings in reply to mvillarreal]

Well you know it's nothing serious or terrible but they don't talk about anything real and serious it's either gossip or not-funny jokes that you have to laugh at. And it's repeated every week. I just hate it when family members don't know how to commuicate with each other.

[Serinus]

I remember having feelings like this. But now, with perspective, it wasn't *that* bad. I think my time frame was similar to yours, an hour or two at a time. I developed coping (and without smartphones!), such as taking a book, that got me through it.

And, like you said, there are many family situations that are so-so. But everybody has them, everybody develops ways of dealing with them. And hopefully the encounters aren't ALL bad.

I wish I had asked more questions. No, not about personal stuff or secrets, but about historical stuff. My grandmother witnessed women's getting the vote. I wish I had asked her about that. I wish I had asked her about the Depression, when she had the only job in the family. I wish I had asked more about the realities of living in a small midwestern town. I DID start to ask her these things, but then it was too late.

I know your grandmother is probably much younger than that. But she likely straddles one of the most significant divides in history, that of the digital revolution. It is really interesting to see how society has changed and is still changing in response to this revolution. Ask her about it - and don't accept superficial answers like "we all had to use a rotary dial on a telephone, ha-ha." Get deeper.

Ask her if she read girls' fiction and what the subjects were. (I remember reading many a teen girl book where the general emphasis was to have true girlfriends, and yes, boyfriends, but not "serious." (Honestly it took me DECADES before I realized what "serious" was a code word for, lol!) Ask her if and when she and her friends began to color their hair and what constituted female attractiveness. Did girls spend money getting their nails done? Did messages change about what the trajectory of one's life should be (remember, she probably straddled the women's movement as well.) How were her relationships with *her* grandparents? Were they alive?

Asking these questions and others you will think of - and you will find it harder to get serious answers than you would think - will make you ask questions about your own that will really make your life and environment more interesting. I wish I had done more of that.

[sarahsfeelings in reply to Serinus]

Thanks for the very interestong response😄I know I'm being a little fussy. It's probably because I'm super introveted and rarely get out of the house.