I don't know how old some of you are, but I think a person's feelings about family change with time and experience. I remember when I was about 14 years old, one day wondering who I loved. I went over in my mind my feelings toward everyone I felt I should love, that everybody loves, and I didn't feel any love for anybody. So I thought maybe I didn't love any of them. Before that, when I was younger, I had never even thought of such a thing. Love was just there.
I think that we feel love in many ways. And even in different ways on the same day. And that we learn about ourselves all the time as we live.
When I didn't know whether I loved my parents and all the rest of my relatives or not, I remember that I also dressed a very large and terrible wound, every day, that my mother had because of an operation and medical treatment. I made sure never to make her feel that I thought she was disfigured, or that it shocked me. She was very grateful to me all the rest of her long life for this. It was indeed a shocking thing for a 14 year old to see on her mother. I have thought about that awful cut and burn for years. About the way that the top would heal and the deep injury below would arise again and it would be unhealed again. It was a very deep radiation burn.
Yet as I cared for her with the utmost tenderness it was almost the same time as I thought I mightn't love her or any of the rest of them, because I could not feel emotions of love.
Did emotion matter? What mattered was that I took the greatest and most loving care of her when she needed it. This experience is one of the reasons that I think deeds are more important than the emotions on the surface of your mind.
I believe that you and your families probably love each other. The question is, whether you want to do anything more about it or not. If not, don't feel bad. Just be helpful, respectful, and considerate. That too, is love. It will be enough for now, and in the end you will find through experience the reality or unreality of your love for each other. Let time take care of it.
I also remember something like Riichen's experience. My mother could get too close to me. I mean I needed privacy within myself, and she could understand too much intuitively, observe too much, and sometimes she spoke of things she saw or knew, instead of leaving them alone. Sometimes she brought something up many times, even over years. That just about killed me! These were things that were not bad things, but that she should have left alone as they were too personal to me. I couldn't bear to have these private things known. But worse was, spoken about.
Now I can talk about almost anything, as you have probably observed here. I hope some of you don't mind my occasional bluntness. I have few of these very painful corners left in my inner being. That is a normal development in life. Young life can be very painful. I am one of those who would not like to repeat my life. Once was enough. Some people would like to live it all over again. The childhood. The youth. The courtship. The marriage. The young motherhood. The mother of teens. The mother of the bride or groom. The grandmother for the first time. It was all great. But once is enough. I have no desire to live any of it over again. There were too many struggles all the way through. There were lovely things, of course, and I am glad to remember them, but I am in a different stage of growth now. There are always stages of growth. :-)) You have lots to look forward to!
Warm greetings, Mary
