Growing Up and Away

One day, before you know it, your family is filled with people you no longer recognize.

Being a part of a family is sad. Oh, there are good times, sure. Like when everybody is young and happy — even mom and dad because they haven’t had to raise teenagers yet — and everyday is full of playing and fighting and then play-fighting, but almost always tears and a new enemy made in another sibling, but it is still a happy day. Then there’s later, when everybody is twenty-something and thirty-something and mom and dad are finally done raising teenagers and everybody has a job to think about, or grad school, or maybe even a family to think about and we can talk to each other like adults, which we are, but we cannot quite talk to our mother because she will more than likely be talking of “settling down.” Indeed, the good times were and will be good, but what about when we’re stranded in-between, while we are no longer children, but we are not yet on the same level of adulthood? In that case, my case, family is sad.

As children, our lives were simple; each day stretched on with the sun itself on our side, delaying its descent below the horizon and dedicating each glimmer of its gold to bringing us joy. The days of adventures, endless Tag games, and pure, unbridled creativity fill me with nostalgia as I often reminisce upon the past, or a particular instance. My siblings and I hold our greatest accomplishment to be the tire swing that once hung behind our first home many years ago. Rusty and probably more dangerous than we realized, it hung carelessly from a sturdy stone that protruded from the old wall in our backyard, swinging back and forth with a slow, creaking malice us children could not register. My siblings and I built that tire swing by ourselves. Five pairs of small hands digging through absurd piles of junk we had no business being near to find ropes, chains, and most importantly: a small tire. My two older sisters were able to somehow tie and fasten the rope and chain to the tire, and then with mechanisms I never grasped, fastened parts together to create a tire swing. As I watched it sway loosely by the light breeze, I marveled at its simple beauty before bored and hungry, I found more excitement in the kitchen. In actuality, unknown to any of us, immediately after we were finished with our tire swing, my uncle came outside and bolted the chains to the wall.

None of us were angry at the revelation that our tire swing was not ours at all because those hours we spent making it meant more to each of us. Even today, I maintain that though my older sisters shouldered the bulk of the labor, it was still a little bit of my accomplishment too. Nobody argues. They let me have that. Maybe because we need the memories. These days, nobody even goes outside anymore unless it’s a stroll to the car.

The tire swing was one of the many projects my siblings and I created as children; another hobby of ours was to make up our own games. Children, in all their adorableness, quirkiness, and innocence, are dreadfully egocentric beings who like to make things their own. We were those children. Each game we called our own was only a slight variation of the one our peers played across the playground. Instead of “TAG!” we would yell “TOUCHED!” or some other tragically uncreative word. It was ludicrous, but it made us feel better about ourselves to think we were innovators among our relatively unaccomplished peers. I actually spent my childhood convinced that my three sisters, brother, and I were the most knowledgeable children on the block, but in fact I was just proud of us. More than once, we made up our own language consisting of unnecessarily complicated alphabets, unbelievably complex numbers, and extremely incomprehensible words, making enthusiastic attempts at conversation until one of us slipped into English and then the cause was lost from there. These activities brought us closer to each other, and maybe we could still be that close, but it’s really hard to tell when everybody is too busy moving forward with their individual lives to take a long look at our family as a whole.

College and senior year and Middle School and sports and friends and life got in the way, forcing us to grow up and away from each other. One year, Georgia State abducted my oldest sister Nora, and the following year, UGA did the same to Tina, leaving me the senior in a home I no longer recognize. With my sisters gone and just myself, my younger siblings, Vanessa and Charles, to occupy it, my house is a shell of what it once was. Sad as it is to say, the three of us are not enough to fill the corners of our home with life. It rests, void of the happiness and laughter and noise I learned to love.

I grew up accustomed to sounds coming from everywhere and everyone almost always all at once because what full house is known for peace and quiet? I heard my sisters — who either sat together in the living room talking and joking very loudly, or relaxing and watching movies very loudly — and watched my brother — who was always trying out one sport or another, cheering very loudly. They were all I knew. To grow up in a home full of life is wonderful. To have that slowly but surely taken away over the course of two years is horrible. To realize the sounds the walls in your house make because for once in your life it’s quiet enough to hear them is the worst of all.

Once upon a time, I could stroll into my home and happily, albeit obnoxiously, declare, “I’M HOME!” like a Brady Bunch daughter who couldn’t wait to give her family a hug and a kiss to make her day complete. Unfortunately, my family, the polar opposite of the Brady Bunch, was always ready with an annoyed “Shut Up!” or a mumbled, “Nobody cares, Jane,” because for us, teasing equated affection. It was all in fun, if we can call it that, because we were the kind of siblings who threw things at each other instead of ever saying, “I love you.” The words never came, but the love was there. It was in the way we always forgave each other, the way we covered for each other, and the way we never grew bored with one another.

Now, I walk into my home and the echo of my voice into the big, empty house breaks my heart. It saddens me that my siblings and I, despite our closeness, have grown and changed, now suspended, waiting for the good times to come again.

— — — — –
2013

Jane D.

Related posts:

In the first game of the fresh season, we see The old lady taking on a familiar foe. Cagliari finished 11th last season and looking to move up the ranks this year. The game started off quickly with…

So you develop an Android app and you want to provide a smooth UI experience, part of this goal is running at a consistent 60 frames per second (why 60fps?) but how can you verify that you are doing…

Many in the world face daunting social problems that the average person couldn’t believe. Thankfully, there are countless social impact startups that want to solve these problems with innovative…