There was a family reunion this weekend. Normally I wouldn't even consider going to one of these things but I perseverated about it for several weeks. As recently as a few days before I was still leaning toward going. But inaction is the easy default and I stayed home for the three-day weekend.
As part of the reunion, there was a pig roast - which was quite an appealing draw. It has probably been decades since I have been to a pig roast. When I was a kid, the church I went to had an annual pig roast. Living across the street from the church, I would always wander over there shortly after the pit master (I'm not sure if they were called that yet in the 1970's) would get there with the roaster and pig. The pig would be roasted, complete with apple in mouth. I would hang around and sometimes get meat presnacks. But maybe I didn't.
There were several pictures posted on Facebook by a few relatives at the reunion. I'm glad there were no pictures of a brown roasted pig; that would have increased the angst about not going.
Last weekend there was also a reunited Guns N' Roses concert at Soldier Field. Slash and Axl back together again. Unlike the reunion, I never even considered going, even for a picosecond. I almost went to a Detroit GNR concert in the late 80's. I didn't go and it was cancelled anyway. As I recall, the late cancellation caused a near riot.
The Independence Day weekend was a productive one, if slightly dull. I was able to treat some wood around the house that needed attention and fix my pole barn. I had one panel of siding on the barn that was slightly mangled in reinstallation haste earlier in the year after replacing some wood that had rotted due to the barn builder's omission of a few pennies worth of caulk; this allowed water to get to the wood above the overhead door, rotting it to structural worthlessness in less than five years. I was also able to put a small patch over what I am quite certain is a bullet hole in the back of the barn. I don't see it daily so I'm fine with the patch. The bullet hole is a little troubling, but I guess someone can hit the broad side of a barn. In reality, I'm not completely sure it actually was a bullet hole, and even if it was, the projectile had to have come form a very long distance away.
Some of the other reunion pictures posted on Facebook were a good reminder of some of the reasons I didn't want to go to the reunion. I cringe at the thought of the awkward conversations with uncles and aunts. I don't suppose most neural-typical people see these family conversations as awkward, but I do. While I have some fond memories of my slightly judgmental relatives from childhood, at this point they are more like strangers I barely know and have little in common with, other than a few chromosomes. Perhaps that is because I don't go to the family reunions.
I wonder if any of my uncles listen to Guns N' Roses. Almost certainly not...
I likely would have enjoyed catching up with some of my cousins - and seeing them as they are today as adults, probably with their own children. In my memories, they are still the lurchy teenagers we all used to be. It actually could have been quite unsettling. My cousin's children look more like my memories of the cousins themselves.
The weather was actually much better seven hours away at the reunion location than it was at home. It would have been a great excuse for a lot of motorcycle time. The motorcycle ride home would have been quite wet however, and I am in need of new tires on the Triumph.
I was, quite frankly, wanting a simple weekend after an exhausting week of work, where my job has completed a five month transition.
I'm not sure if not going to the family reunion was the right decision. But it was a decision. I rarely look back with regret, but sometimes with zelfmedelijden.
"Just as ancient insects that led full productive lives disappeared without a trace, and those that bumbled into amber and died are still around in tangible form, so our personal failures remain, sharp and clear, long after the day-to-day routine and minor victories fade into nothingness." - Neil Steinberg
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