![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Ah. Back at school.
You know, everyone seems to be having strange and freaky dreams [not the least Sarah's freaky ravens-immersed-in-corn dream] I feel kinda superfluous posting my slighty freaky but actually kinda meaningful dream. I dreamt that my cousins came [they come visit once a year at Thanksgiving, which annoys the crap out of me-- that means that we have one day to get to know the people we are this year, a day to get comfortable around these relative strangers [dude-- pun! on accident! woo!], a day to become closest of friends or pleasant enemies, a day to get tired of constantly being in eachother's presence and to show our true colors, and then they leave. And then we get to repeat a year later.]. I realised that my hair [which is over a foot shorter than the last time they came] had grown out to past my shoulders in the dream. It really is still rather short in real life. And I had the option of leaving it that way, becoming again the person that they knew, or cutting it all off again and staying the way I've become in the year since they've seen me. The option of conforming to fit their definition of me, or being myself.
I don't know if all families are like this, or if it's just southern families, or if it's just my family, but we run by labels. My dad and his sisters and cousins all had their specific niche-- The Artist, The Lawyer, The Concert Pianist, etc. There's something similar in our generation. And I used to not be much of an artist [okay, gloating mom voice in my head, I was an okay artist] but this summer I experienced an explosion of ability. Suddenly I was drawing in ways I'd never before been able to draw. Colors, shading, perspective... it all came to me. Now I have this talent. Will I hide it from the other family members? Will I just pretend I'm still just plain ol' Alex, the one who lives in the back end of nowhere [they live in Denver and Seattle] and whose role in this family structure seems to only be Peacemaker and Entertainer? The Responsible One? I'm going to have to see. Gah.
You know, everyone seems to be having strange and freaky dreams [not the least Sarah's freaky ravens-immersed-in-corn dream] I feel kinda superfluous posting my slighty freaky but actually kinda meaningful dream. I dreamt that my cousins came [they come visit once a year at Thanksgiving, which annoys the crap out of me-- that means that we have one day to get to know the people we are this year, a day to get comfortable around these relative strangers [dude-- pun! on accident! woo!], a day to become closest of friends or pleasant enemies, a day to get tired of constantly being in eachother's presence and to show our true colors, and then they leave. And then we get to repeat a year later.]. I realised that my hair [which is over a foot shorter than the last time they came] had grown out to past my shoulders in the dream. It really is still rather short in real life. And I had the option of leaving it that way, becoming again the person that they knew, or cutting it all off again and staying the way I've become in the year since they've seen me. The option of conforming to fit their definition of me, or being myself.
I don't know if all families are like this, or if it's just southern families, or if it's just my family, but we run by labels. My dad and his sisters and cousins all had their specific niche-- The Artist, The Lawyer, The Concert Pianist, etc. There's something similar in our generation. And I used to not be much of an artist [okay, gloating mom voice in my head, I was an okay artist] but this summer I experienced an explosion of ability. Suddenly I was drawing in ways I'd never before been able to draw. Colors, shading, perspective... it all came to me. Now I have this talent. Will I hide it from the other family members? Will I just pretend I'm still just plain ol' Alex, the one who lives in the back end of nowhere [they live in Denver and Seattle] and whose role in this family structure seems to only be Peacemaker and Entertainer? The Responsible One? I'm going to have to see. Gah.
