Families And How Not To Survive Them

(whoops: posted by Zena)

I grew up in an industrial city outside of London, and arrived in the smoke about twenty seconds after I graduated. Anxious for the fun and frolics of urban/urbane life, I left my close-knit family behind. We’ve been through our ups and downs – whose hasn’t? – and they’ve never quite got over my leaving our six-digit postcode area.

But life moves on.

My brother and sister-in-law are about to have their umpteenth child, and as a result of a host of medical complications, it’s arriving tomorrow, by cesearean. For my other nieces and nephews, I hopped straight on a train, laden with gifts, to share in the big day and greet them personally. I would count holding my first nephew in my arms as among the top five most emotional experiences of my life: the miracle of new life blew me away.

Originally, my brother said don’t bother coming, we’ve had so many kids. But I thought that in the future, this kid’ll ask me if I was there when they arrived, and I’ll say “naaah, hardly worth coming up for you.” And the advantage of planned ceasars, is I could book a relatively inexpensive ticket weeks ago.

I was kinda planning on it being a surprise – they thought I wasn’t coming, and then I’d appear, laden with gifts for all the other kids (you know those books that say the other kids have to get gifts so they don’t feel left out? I got my own – Freudian – carry cot and baby doll when my little sister arrived. She was good at shopping, even in the womb.)

But I’m not great at surprises, and when I talked to my brother this afternoon, and he said he’d call me in the morning, I couldn’t help myself, and said, “I’ll be there. I’m on the ten o’clock train.” He was cool about it in a slightly reserved way, but called me back tonight and said that R, my sister-in-law “isn’t accepting visitors” tomorrow at all, and I shouldn’t come.

I feel a mixture of emotions: over-ridingly, that it’s her baby, and I obviously don’t want to create any extra stress or tension during what can be a difficult time anyway. My other siblings have apparently already been told they can’t go tomorrow, but because no-one was expecting me, I wasn’t in on all that. I was only going to go for five minutes with my mum (grandparents are allowed, apparently).

So now I’ve got a zillion large gifts from the Early Learning Centre sitting in my hall, and a ticket I’m not going to use, and a terrible feeling that somewhere on the worthless-stupid-unwanted continuum.

For me, times like this are family times: a whole brand-new person joining our family. And wanting to share that with my brother and sister in law, and nieces and nephews and parents and unles and aunts. R calls the shots, obviously, and if she doesn’t want me there, I’m not going to go (my Mum said I should just visit for the day anyhow, and not see the baby, but that’s just stupid).

I feel hurt. And rejected. And times like this make me realise quite how alone in the world I really am.