(Will catch up on everyone’s blogs soon, promise…)
Another pleasant train journey past and I am back from San Francisco at the Parent’s house. I swear I would do all my long distance travel that way if I could. Can you imagine if they had high-speed rail up and down the coast? ‘Tis to dream…
Tomorrow I’ll return to LA, and not a moment too soon.
As much as I love my Parentals, there is a limited threshold of time in which we can occupy the same domicile. Perhaps I’m the only one who has this issue, but there’s a strange little timeline that occurs when we get together. When I first arrive, they are happy to see me, and we interact exactly as you might expect adults to: pleasant conversation, discussions of current issues, and the like.
As the days go by, though, I notice they tend to treat me younger and younger. It was capped today when I went to have some cranberry bread for dessert and my Father said “you’ll need to get a plate and a knife.”
Uh, yeah, Dad, I’m thirty-four. Pretty good with the whole knowing what dishes and utensils I’ll be needing for a couple of slices of cranberry bread thing by now.
It’s a minor thing, but when it happens more and more as they days go by, it becomes quite noticeable.
Why this happens, I have no explanation. It happened less often when I was in a relationship, when The Ex Girlfriend and I would spend holidays up here. I have no explanation for that difference, either. Did they simply see me as being more of an “adult” when I was involved with someone and, now that I’m single again, they simply don’t? Who knows?
Whatever the case, all of it, from the being-single-on-the-holidays to they parents-treating-me-as-child to the gray-and-gloomy-but-not-quite-rainy-therefore-nice-weather-outside to the always-unhappy-93-year-old-grandmother is getting me down.
All-in-all I find myself yearning for home. If I’m going to feel like this, I may as well be there, right?
Maybe I just need to get back out on the trail.
The GeekHiker 
My parents are gone, however, when my sisters and I get together, we go right back into the pecking order of our youth. My oldest sis is the one in charge, the middle sis is the ditzy blond, then there’s me, the youngest, trying to keep everyone happy. Hmmm, must be why we only stay for a few days at a time.
Have a safe trip home!
By: dobegil on December 29, 2007
at 12:49 am
I agree with dobegil. We all tend to fall into old patterns. Some day you will do the same with your kids.
By: Homer-Dog on December 29, 2007
at 9:24 am
It’s such an odd dynamic. If you end up responding to things like the knife and plate with a comment about being an adult it is an instant flash to the teen years when one kept saying “I’m an adult!”.
Space is a good thing.
By: just a girl on December 29, 2007
at 10:54 am
You’re right, a hike always does the trick. Something about sitting under a huge tree with snow falling around you and no one else there to interrupt your silence…nice.
By: Backpackermomma on December 29, 2007
at 7:37 pm
dobegil – Yeah, seems like we all just slip back into our old roles, doesn’t it?
Homer-Dog – Good to know, should I ever spawn.
just a girl – Yeah. I love my folks, but after a while, one just needs a bit ‘o space.
Backpackermomma – true, though I’m back in Southern California now, where snow is a bit hard to find, at least at the lower elevations… and welcome to my little site! 🙂
By: geekhiker on December 30, 2007
at 10:59 pm
And the rest of us take our relatively “normal” functioning family for granted. Sorry the holidays were a bummer. 😦
By: Aaron on January 4, 2008
at 10:00 am