IF ONLY LIFE WAS LIKE A PARAGRAPH

Recently received feedback that my blogs were long. No paragraphs. I understand the concept of paragraphs and am fully capable of using them. For some reason, I have been writing in this blog as if it were one long stream of consciousness. It's not. Paragraphs have a beginning and an end. There is a main idea. One detail can be the highlight of the paragraph. In fiction, paragraphs can be one word, one sentence or a conversation. Paragraphs can be indented or not, but do need some kind of stand alone look about them. Life is not like a paragraph. It kind of swirls around, you cannot be sure where things are going to land most of the time. Life is messy, but in mostly a good way. The concept of a paragraph may help put order to my thoughts and perhaps help the lovely readers to follow my thoughts. This is the end of my thoughts on paragraphs.

I have a few more things to say about the trip to Berlin. It's been great fun showing the pictures to friends who seemed amazed that we all got along so well. There were questions like: So was there any tension? Did you have fights? We really did get along and if there was tension, people kept it to themselves. This is very much not like my family of origin or even Craig's. When my siblings gather, the adults feel compelled to share all their thoughts. It doesn't take long for at least one person to be offended. People even make things up. Not blatant lies, more like assumptions such as I think he/she deliberately is trying to sabatoge my wedding. These assumptions are based on some fairly sketchy evidence like a missed phone call. More importantly, the tension builds because someone always has to bring up the past. It cannot lie peacefully in the past where it belongs. The tension builds and usually results in people not speaking to each other, sometimes for years, until the next family gathering.

In Craig's family, the tension is associated with the details of extravaganzas. Over the top is the standard that seems impossible to reach, but somehow must be reached. There is tension among family members, but it bubbles under the surface, in huddles among two or three family members. There are no dramatic confrontations, accusations or drawing of the swords like in my family. I think there is a lot more crying in Craig's family. My family yells or seeths in very scary ways.

Now we get to observe our own adult children interact. We are no longer the center of their lives.
They come and go, seem to enjoy our company and even better seem to accept our idiosyncracies. Like going to bed early. They have their own relationships, separate from their relationship to us the parents. They are the three together and then the many combination of diads that results from the number three. It gives us, the parents, delight that they maintain contact, visit each other and support one another.