Hi people! π
Describe to me, what is your family like?
My answer:
Depends which side of the family we’re talking about. My Mum’s family are emotional, exuberant, touchy-feely (my Mum’s is the exact opposite of touchy-feely but the rest of them are), caring, sometimes way too caring about other people’s business and meddling into things that don’t concern them. They are very spontaneous and change their minds all the time, especially my Mum and her siblings, and as a consequence, they’re also very moody. They’re sentimental and almost all of them are easily moved and cry, They have a tendency to impose their own opinions on others but usually aren’t even fully aware of the extend of it and are well-meaning. They say they’re typical eastern Slavs as they have roots in all of the eastern Slavic countries plus Lithuania. They like to dance, have fun and many of them are a bit impulsive. They are all religious and very serious about it and have a very genuine relationship with God. My grandad is a bit of an exception, as he is an introvert, not quite as chatty and much more of a loner, deeply thinking through everything he’s going to say and a bit melancholic, he’s also much less emotional and makes a very haughty and proud impression, which is absolutely correct, but it doesn’t mean he can’t be very loving and caring when he wants to. Most of them are very intelligent and appreciate intelligent conversations, highly value knowledge and have a need for beauty in their lives. They are mostly traditionalists. They have a great sense of solidarity and genuinely like to meet up. They can be quite overwhelming and I don’t feel much of an emotional connection with them, which probably just stems from my lack of sense of belonging in general rather than anything else, but I much prefer my Mum’s family to my Dad’s and have a bit better contact with them. They’re more open-minded and just kinder and more genuine and I respect them far more.
My Dad’s family is quite different. They are secretive but in a weird way. They have those strange cliques where someone is talking to X, but not to Y because they had an arguement with Y in 1993. So you’ve got to be careful when inviting people sometimes, ’cause you can end up with a roomful of very emphatically quiet people. They do like to meet up though, nevertheless, and also have quite a strong sense of community, they know a lot about their ancestors and are proud Kashubs (though only my gran can actually speak Kashubian fluently and uses it in daily life in a serious way). They are narrow-minded and not the most subtle people in the world, they even always have such a weird way of talking to each other as if they were constantly mad or unfriendly at best. They are rather superficial in their judging of others or making their opinions on anything, it seems like they can’t have a deeper look into anything, and there is something cold, coarse and I’d even say unfeeling about them. Like, you wouldn’t go to my gran, or not even to my Dad (though he’s quite different than most of his family because of interacting so much with Mum’s family, and has been kind of polished over the years), anyway, you wouldn’t go to any of them if you had some problem and wanted someone to seriously listen to you and be compassionate and comforting. They can’t listen, only talk about themselves. They’re kinda self-absorbed and have a very stereotypical, one-dimensional view of the world and people. Politically, most of them are rightists and some are leftists but in overall views on life they all are very conservative, and not quite like my Mum’s family for whom their traditions are very valuable and of emotional significance but it seems more like some habits they stick to just for the sake of it, and have a hard time making any changes to their thinking or acting. They like to gossip. Sometimes when people gossip, it’s interesting to listen to because even if it’s not true, interesting stories come out of it and it’s intriguing to think of it what of it might actually be true and what exactly are the people about whom they’re gossipping, and sometimes it sounds like some fascinating fairytales, but in my Dad’s family gossipping is much more boring, they can’t even find interesting topics to gossip about, and it has a fair bit of toxicity in it. My Dad and his brothers have a weird common trait that they love to make fun of other people as a way of dealing with their own insecurities. It’s a very nasty habit. If they have a problem with you, something about you they’re envious about, or they feel insecure around you, expect that anything you’ll say will be met with a cynical laughter and some stupid comment that’s supposed to ridicule you. They don’t have quite the same loyalty as my Mum’s family have. They don’t really have imagination –
except for one of my cousins who has been gifted in this area and is generally incredibly different from them also in that she is more sensitive to other people – and most of them don’t even enjoy reading or anything like this, although they’re passionate about watching TV, some 24/7 and if it’s any less they get bad withdrawal symptoms.
As for my most immediate family, we are quite a close family, at least we are closer with each other than many other families I know. We all love and care about each other and I think we spend more time together than most families do these days. But generally we’re a rather typical family I guess and there’s nothing overly unusual about us. We do have our fair share of misunderstandings and a lot of differences between each other but at this point we don’t have any serious family problems or arguments and we get along well with each other. I think though it all wouldn’t be quite as well if not our Mum. She is like an adhesive for us. I often think that if she died suddenly, we would all fall apart in all sorts of different directions. She is often the mediator between us and brings us all together, and I know she sometimes makes big sacrifices and compromises in order for things to stay calm and peaceful, which isn’t always easy with a character like my Dad. Also we are always thankful for the blessing that we have Zofijka here. I often say that if not Zofijka, our house would turn into a Camaldolese monaster – the house would be so eerily quiet and no one would talk. –
And everyone agrees, because while Mum can be very chatty, she gets those moods when she doesn’t talk at all and seems annoyed with everyone, making the atmosphere a bit stale, Dad is generally rather quiet at home and he’s not too talkative, and me and Olek have our own worlds, and our own rooms where we like to spend the time, and are both introverts, plus Olek is at work most of the day anyway. So it would feel really eery over here without Sofi long-term. Though she’s very absorbing and very loud so it’s good to have a break from her once in a while.
What about your family? π