29 September, 2005
it's a family affair

in cultures like ours, ruled by fads and pseudo-hipness, certain words get overworked to the point of inanity.
"dysfunctional" is one of them.
psychologists can be blamed first. then advertisers. then everything is infected until the meaning is lost, or else is so twisted that it means something completely different.
it's most commonly a prefix to the word "family". FOXnetwork seems to have the most time and capital invested in its use.

this assumes that there is some kind of ideal for what a "functional" or "normal" collection of relatives might be. i figure it's not one or the other: whatever isn't abusive or bizarre or strangling or liable to get you arrested in a public place has to be the happy medium.

i'm sure there was a point i was trying to make...

...oh, yeah.

"dysfunctional" families.
how can they be "dysfunctional" if they don't seem to exist?

somewhere in this tangle of words that i've woven, i've gone into more detail about those that share my DNA. paternal side--never in the picture. maternal side, slightly less so: something happened here to this clan that was at once tight-knit, and flung them to the furthest reaches (well before i came along). we were the only ones who remained on the residue of a former 400 acre estate.

one of these relatives, of whom i have no recollection, left a trust from which my grandmother received a pittance from the interest. not long before she passed, it discontinued, and was not heard about again.

into my mother's hands now resides a stack of legal documents from lawyers concerning the dissolution of this trust. she is named among 264 others.

if find this extremely ironic:

first, we never had anything of substance other than the land we lived on when i was growing up... literally (and there are stories of calamity that would take
volumes to relate)--now, moms will be comfortable in her old age.

second: there are relatives coming out of the proverbial woodwork, descending upon the local courthouse in little more than a month. it's funny how money does that.

this is going to be quite a show for the formerly family-less. i'll be looking for signs of in-brededness.

and dysfunction.

.