Being back with my whole family again is an interesting experience. In some ways, everything is very familiar, and in other ways it feels like I'm in a foreign country adjusting to the culture.
I come from a family where the norm is: loud talking, strong opinions, multiple conversations happening at once in the same room, and sometimes overlapping participants. Yesterday, I realized, that I love that cacophony, and sometimes I miss it. Growing up, I often felt like my family was "dysfunctional" because everyone was always yelling at everyone else. I now realize that it is just the culture of my family. That the loudness doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem, and that underlying it all is love.
At the same time, it is a very interesting experience being back here, and it really does feel like I'm in a totally different culture from how I choose to be. They don't recycle, they shop at Wal-mart, and TV plays a much bigger role in day-to-day living than I'm used to. Yesterday, I kept thinking that I've changed so much, but I realized just now that these are things that always bothered me growing up. so maybe I haven't changed all that much, and neither have they.
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