I find this funny most of the time but from time to time the looks start to pierce the skin when I look around and realize a few things about the rest of my family. All of them college grads, all immediate family is in a fraternity/sorority, and most of all none of them wear clothing that says "die yuppie scum" on the back or a Black Flag Slip It In shirt with a nun holding onto a naked mans leg. Dont get me wrong my parents and brother are no where to to squares or preppy rich kids, but it makes me think how I turned out to be the tattooed, pierced, obscenely angry person who is actually related to these collar shirt, khaki, and boat shoe wearing parents.
Riding my bike gives me a whole lot of time to think about nothing but thats infront of me, but it also gives me time to think about simple things. Things like my dad being in boston for a few years in the very early 80s and what punk and hardcore bands he had seen without even knowing that they were big in my life. The fact that I wouldnt be riding a bike if it was not for him being a mechanic, or forcing my parents to teach me to ride a bike at 3 then my brother was learning at 5 because I didnt want to be left out. Put that in a big mixing bowl with the mindset and stubbornness I got from my mother and it seems after you bake it that I am whats is the finish product when that oven buzzer tells you its done. I dont think I would be anywhere close to who I am without my brother. I've learned that those early fights and bickering are really only to prepare you for life and people more hardheaded than myself.
I dont mean to sit here and say "appreciate your family while you can" because that should be an understood fact of life. Before this year and recent events I never took that as seriously as I should of and didnt understand how similar we all were. Dad is always that one person I can express mechanical frustration to and ask for help from but dont expect him to give too much of an opinion willingly, kinda gotta pry that out but when he does give it willingly man it worth hearing. Mom is one of the hardest workers I have ever know, fights for whatever she wants relentlessly(within reason), and I can see where she gets it from looking at her parents and family. I am not going to delve into the relationship with my grandfather because I would like to save that for a separate post. He is though the one person I can always call, never judges, and is always in my corner wiping of my gloves and shoving me back out there when I can barely stand because he knows I can do it. It is tough to write about my brother because he is a huge part of my life but also very distant and even harder to crack than my father. You wouldnt even think we were brothers standing next to eachother but once we get talking and laughing you can tell that we are close and have more in common than not.
This isnt a post to tell you to go embrace your family and make every memory happy because we all know that sometimes that is not possible. As long as I can make my family happy and proud the rest of the world could very well not exist. It all comes back to sitting at dinner with my family and singing that song in my head as I look around. None of that seems to matter when I start laughing with them and remember that no matter what is on or in my skin these people are mine, no one else will every have the relationship that I have with them. No matter who my brother marries, no matter how many suburban soccor moms and their family walk by and pull their kids away as I make loud and probably inappropriate jokes that my family has become accustomed to with me and seem to snicker at. No matter how annoying they could get they are mine.
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