here's some stuff about my extended family. i don't know what the purpose of explaining any of it is, but i want to talk about it anyway. this is by no means a complete biography. i just felt like writing a few quick thoughts on them. i will definitely do another thing like this in the future.
my grandpa on my mom's side:
he is a very old money-boomer. he made a bunch off oil back in the 70s and 80s, in and around the now locally infamous National Energy Policy era. the the's got the pornstache, the gut, the chain, the Polos, the presumably Rolex watch, the stone driveway, the suburb, the Mercedes-Benz (which has unfortunately since been sold). his demeanor is very Tony Soprano-ish despite being Irish instead of Italian. he likes a drink and to travel and is an avid golfer. i have never really had the closest relationship with him, even less so has my mom, which has been the focal point of all our tension. i don't think he is a shitbag, but i have called him a coward before. i've lost a lot of respect for him over the years out of loyalty to my mom. i've never needed his approval because i haven't really ever gotten much of it to begin with, but K--- for some reason still needs it. i won't invalidate that no matter how much i don't understand it. we all seem to slowly be building back up a relationship though, perhaps for the better. him and my grandma are paying for college, after all.
my grandma on my mom's side - in this case, the only one i will ever know:
i guess you could call her my 'step-grandma', but that feels weird, even if i'm known to have very fucking critical of her to say the least. i have probably been less close with her than i have been with my grandpa. she is a socialite who puts a lot of importance on things with status. she has a very controlled way of speaking. it's almost restrained despite the fact she speaks a lot, but you can tell her words are chosen carefully. she's politically correct in the old fashion sense of the word, as in personally inoffensive. during our bad years, she was a kind of Dick Cheney to my grandpa's George Bush, as in, she was the really the one calling the shots. my dad thinks she is annoying and so does my mom to some extent, and i'm with them there, but i don't resent her nor my grandpa. i'll still hold out with how
my grandma on my mom's side, the one i will never know:
my grandma G--- is undoubtedly the most important person to ever have been in my mom's life. she was irrevocably close with her, and the agent for which the most important events in her life occured from. her cancer diagnosis is what remade the makeup of our whole family and put my parents' marriage and subsequently the birth of K--- and I in motion. she came from a shitload of hardship but broke out of it all. it was the kind of thing one never truly moves completely past, but still made it out in what she did accomplish. apparently, she was kind of quiet and introverted but had a keen sense of style, which are cool traits of anyone in my books. her and my mom talked feverishly for hours all the time, much like me and my mom do now, which is what my mom misses the most. my mom misses her every day since she passed. i wish i could have met her, but i have no clue what that would have been like. everything would be completely different.
my aunt on my mom's side:
i've only ever seen her six times. she's lived in the States my whole life and my mom has had a super tumultuous relationship with her for two reasons: 1. what i would call childhood trauma (which she would never in a million years come close to putting it like that), and 2. they're fundamentally different people, so much so that they once went 7 years without talking to each other. to put it simply, my mom is friendly but keeps to herself, while my aunt does not and is a "hardass". i put the latter in quotes because my dad contests it every chance he gets in a way that's so blunt it's funny, and i can't really disagree with him - with his logic being solid and having never really gotten to know her. my dad says she is a "conformist who has never had an original thought in her life". my mom disagrees with that on the basis of trying to be more understanding of her and also being her sister. my mom just says they're two different people who want different things out of life which she has to respect. not a bad attitude, if you ask me.
