+ The Trip +

I don't know what it is about being here, but for some reason it is always a little bit weird. It's the first time I've been here since my Grandpa has been dead. This is the only real closure I've gotten due to the fact that I couldn't be here for the funeral - I was back at college attending classes feeling sad that I had to be alone knowing everyone else was together saying goodbye to my Grandpa... when to me it still felt like it always had. It felt like all I needed to do was reach out for my phone and call and he'd answer. As he always had before.

I've never lived close to any of my extended family. So it was always rare I'd see any of them. I kind of feel like I've missed out knowing a lot of my cousins for that reason. As a result, there's very few cousins that I feel completely myself around [in other words, Obi Wan Kenobi I'm fine around... everyone else it's hit or miss]. Mostly I find that I end up rambling and feeling stupid often because I don't know what to say. And it comes out jerky or stupid. Or like the stories I share are irrelevant. I'm just not comfortable in my own skin around a lot of my family, which sounds terrible. I kind of felt that way about my Mom's side of the family especially. It's nothing against them. They're all [for the most part] good people.

The Dad's Mom would always fly me out to her for a month every summer for about five years. As a result I can at least not ramble around that side of the family...As much. Certain people I still feel awkward around. I think that's why my younger cousins are okay to be around - they do all the talking. Which leaves me to just smile and nod. Pretending I'm following along. I rarely am.

Even my grandpa and grandma here I sometimes would feel awkward around. I'd get a kind of anxiety and not know what to do so I'd cling to whoever in my immediate family was around and try to stay out of trouble. That never worked though. I'd do something stupid and get scolded. I'd look at pictures that were put in front of me and get scolded because grandpa would think I'd intended to take them all home. I'd put on a mini-series [The 10th Kingdom, in case you're curious] and get told I'm stupid for liking it because it isn't real. Read the wrong books and was stupid and ignorant. Someone would be talking to me and I'd drop a nail polish breaking open the bottle - feel like I needed to be taken out back and shot. I looked for a sign of a stain of the nail polish yesterday - some proof that my memories weren't betraying me. I could find no evidence, I think the Mom cleaned it up to look good as new. I'd try to stay out of trouble, I really would. I just was never able to achieve being 'good'.

I just remember not being able to do a whole lot right. I feel like that's often how I am. I try too hard and end up failing. Or somehow seem fake. Or prove that I just don't belong.

I can still feel the anxiety running through my bones just being here. No one has scolded me this time. I've been helpful. I cooked dinner (other than the salsa, quacamole, and margaritas - the Aunt did that and it was amazing). I've helped clean up. I accompanied a cousin to the store. Yet I still feel an anxiety being here. I don't know where it's coming from. But I feel like there's something wrong. I haven't been scolded yet.

The first night I tried to sleep in this house [that is now missing both of my grandparents] I once again had a dream that slightly terrified me. But I can't tell anyone here. They'll think I've lost my marbles. Heck, I think I've lost my marbles. It was about my grandpa. I hate that he isn't here this time. I hate that my grandma isn't here this time either. It's weird and feels strange. The dream felt so real, it had something to do with my grandpa still being here, like a ghost or something? Like somehow he was stuck in the house unable to leave... I had told my aunt [in the dream] and she just fell over crying. And I had asked if he's still here to blow the wind to prove it, and it hit my aunt and I...Or something. It's still all foggy - it was two days ago. I think it only felt real because the wind in the dream was actually hitting me... in the form of the fan that was going in my room - but I woke up disoriented and freaked out until I could figure out where, exactly, I was. Because I forgot.

Oddly enough that wasn't the first time I've had a terrifying dream in this place. The other one I was sleeping on the couch because there was 17 or 18 people all staying here [Grandpa was still alive and was sleeping in the room I'm sleeping in this time - the one I was always having to share with my brother when we were little and visited]. For some reason God was trying to tell me something very important, but everyone else in my family was talking over God and wouldn't be quiet. So God said to me, "Forget it, if everyone's just going to talk - then you don't get to know what I was going to say to you." And he started to leave while I was chasing after Him saying, "No, wait, please. I'm listening. What did you want to say?" But He was gone and I was left alone. A terror was rising inside me and then I snapped to attention forcing myself awake. I still felt the terror. My grandpa was yelling in Norweigan in his sleep, a cousin's daughter was screaming because she was teething and no one else was awake.

It's just weird being here. I don't know why I get intense terror sometimes being here in the form of dreams. And at some moments it takes all I can to hold myself together. I feel... I don't know. I just don't know what I feel. Awkward. Uncomfortable. And yet... I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad I get to see the Aunt, Uncle, two male cousins and their wives and one of their daughters. I might still not know how to be myself around the cousins all of the time and find myself feeling stupid, but still they are my favorite on the Mom's side of the family.