Family

Isn't it strange how the very people supposed to be closest to you can be the ones that hurt you the most? Is that what family is? I really wonder.

I have never been especially close with my extended family members due to many factors. I never grew up with them, visiting only during holidays and special occassions. And there was always a communication gap between us, my sister and I grew up in the city and they grew up in a more country like place. It's a little town where everyone knows everyone else, kinda like those small places that you see in dramas. Anyways, back to them. They were always running around amongst themselves, sharing their little jokes about the neighbourhood while my sister and I would just stand in the corner, blank looks on our faces.

Of course, being cousins we would play with each other and invent strange games that I recall fondly upon. But I always felt that, to a certain extent, I was always on the outside looking in. Even with my grandparents it was the same thing. They would always favour my other cousins over my sister and I, probably due to the fact that they themselves hardly knew us. We were the ones that lived away from them, the ones that spoke English instead of dialect. And when we did speak dialect, we would do so with accents, sounding somewhat snobbish I suppose. We would speak English with our aunts and uncles, and this made us look even worse in their eyes. I'll always remember my grandmother saying "Thank you" to me instead of her usual "Mmm" that she does to my cousins when they do things for her. That made me feel as though I really was a visiting guest, not part of the family.

Apart from that, I'll always remember the way my family members always had something to comment about my sister and I. No matter what we did, it was always seen as trying to be different and we were always regarded as attention seekers. My sister and my cousin are of the same age, and therefore always scrutinised together.I was always compared with the other cousins who were closer to me in age. While my sister and I did exceptionally well in school, my cousins learnt how to smoke and gamble. This never changed their opinions of us though. It was almost like we were deliberately trying to upstage the rest of the cousins. The others could do no wrong. My sister and I would do everything wrong.

My grandparents did show us affection though, they would always remember what my sister and I liked to eat and would call us to the table for extra servings of our favourites. As long as we were in no way a direct threat to the rest of the children, we were loved.

Strange? I think so too.

But now I've gotten used to it. And when I hear of families being so close knit that cousins hang out together and all, I find it a bit difficult to understand such closeness. I have a few cousins who are closer to me than the rest but none who I would do those things with. None. Even if they want to do such things with me, I'd feel extremely uncomfortable and try my best to get out of it. It's so.. unnatural for me to be close with them. It really is.

My family, to me, consists of my parents, my sister and myself. And now, my brother in law and my soon to arrive nephew. Cruel words are not spared in my family as well, we do have our trials and tribulations, but at the end of the day, we look at each other and everything's ok again. We don't have to say sorry coz we know that we're the only ones there for each other.

And that's enough.