The last time

Staying at my in-laws’ is close to torture. It isn’t that they’re unkind people — they’re quite the opposite. But it’s the ten-hour flight, 3-hour stopover, and 2-hour drive to get to their house. It’s the several large, red-tinged stains on the off-white, down blanket on the bed. It’s the half-frozen fumbling in the low-pressure shower with the compulsory squeegee for the glass doors, followed by funny smelling towels. It’s the chagrin watching the amount of work put into making dinner every night when take out or fast food would be perfectly fine, even preferred. It’s the helplessness of doing dishes and being directed as to which of the dozens of cabinets and drawers is the proper place for each dried item.

But mostly it’s the feeling of fading — the near-continuous disquiet of my introverted, particular, peculiar self being forced to feel I must fit in and conform to how other people are in a place that is not and will never be me. I don’t think they understand how much I am trying to do just that, and how much it takes to try.

I just want to be myself. But I can never be that here, among them, because they are caught up in their own blood — their own son, and other children, and grandchildren. I watch from a sort of sideline. I am an appurtenance: not really needed in, last to be beckoned into, family photos.

Tomorrow I will wake up again at 1 AM my-home-time. I’ll go to their church and try to worship. I’ll have lunch and try to make polite conversation. I’ll help with the dishes and do my best to not be a bother. I’ll try to smile, while inside a caged tiger paces.