(no subject)

[bubosquared]

I really hope EasyJet succeed in negotiating to do direct flights from Edinburgh to Brussels, because while I don't mind the ninety-minute flight or the three hours on the train, the waiting in between (four hours total!) is going to kill me dead. Feck. But I arrived at my parents safe and sound, and didn't miss any connections or forget anything on the plane or train, so that's good.

Some things I learned at the family to-do on Saturday:

• My dad is a dork.
• My dad has been a dork since childhood.
• My dad was a dork who was forever mugging when confronted with a camera. (Proof..)
• While I have a similar body build to most of the women on my dad's side of the family, I don't have any physical resemblence to any of my family members on that side.
• Neither do my brothers.
• My cousins, however? Do. A lot.
• My brothers and I are now the only ones of our generation who've never brought an SO to a family gathering.
• We will continue to be the exceptions for a long time, as none of us would really considerbringing a girlfriend to these family gatherings, for various reasons.
• A number of details about my brothers' sex life, past and present, that I really could've done without.
• Small children frighten me, especially when there's a whole gaggle of them, even when they're related to me.

And that's all I have to say about that, really, except some general thoughts on family and family history and how I wish my grandfather hadn't died before writing more than a page of his memoires, and the urge to start writing some sort of actual autobiography type thing.

When we returned home, I went out for a drink with my brothers, which turned out to be a rather enlightening experience. We talked about bullying, and for a moment it was me and my oldest brother against the youngest, in a way. We were talking about the effects bullying has on you later in life, and my brother mentioned the frequent, paranoid conviction that you're unwanted and people you're hanging with would prefer you to leave, that you're being a fiifth wheel, and I mentioned the low self-esteem thing, and how I'm often still surprised when I look in the mirror and see a good-looking young woman, and while we're all "Oh, yes, totally," my youngest brother's looking at us in total uncomprehension. Much as I adore my youngest brother, I'm sometimes almost foribly reminded that the other one and I have much more in common in terms of life experiences, and not just because we're closer in age and have thus both lived through the Eighties and remember things like Fraggle Rock

I also realised in that moment that we're grown-ups now. Well, two grownups and a growing-up, but it's strange to realise that we can do this now, we can go out and talk about serious issues (and sit in the back seat of the car with my parents in the front and talk in some detail about sex, but see above about TMI, heh) like this. I'm having a hard time putting the feeling into words, but those of you with younger siblings who're in their late teens or older will probably know what I mean.

And then on Sunday I did the whole trains, planes and automobiles buses thing in reverse order, and that was a bit of a mindfuck, too, going home after visiting my parents and realising that "going home" in this case was more than just a one-hour train ride, that "home" is in another country now, where people speak a different language and use a different currency, and it was another one of those smallish things that really drove home to me that I'm here to stay.

And in Other News That Only Belgians (and the lone Dutch person on my friendslist) Will Understand: I sat across the aisle from Kristien hemmerechts on the train! Cooool!

Comments

[sileas.livejournal.com]

The joy of having an even younger sibling is letting them get to know all the movies and TV-shows my brother and I enjoyed when we were kids. My nephew loves it when my brother and I reminisce over Star Wars, Indiana Jones and the A-team.

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

Whenever my oldest brother and I start talking about TV Shows Of The Eighties, my youngest brother just looks at us as if we're nuts. Then again, trying to explain, say, Fraggle Rock to someone who's never seen it really does sound as if Eighties kids were raised on crack.

[sileas.livejournal.com]

*g* Don't explain it to me then, because I have no idea what Fraggle Rock is. ;-) We watched McGyver, The A-team, Star Trek, The Simpsons... Pity there weren't any 'real' TV stations at the time that had much cartoons. We always watched the BBC for the cartoons. My nephew doesn't know which network to pick for cartoons. There are so many these days!

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

Fraggle Rock! The Freggles! You MUST have seen that!

Why do I have such a different memory of TV shows than you and rane_ab?

[sileas.livejournal.com]

Nope. Never heard of Fraggle Rock or the Freggles. I've heard of the Smurfs and the Snorkels though. *g*

It's very weird since you're only a year older than me and rane_ab is a year younger than me. Maybe your TV just had different channels programmed than ours. Do you remember which channel Fraggle Rock was on? And is that that show with the crazy Dutchies who stood in a boxing ring and they waved around with plakaten yelling 'de eerste rondeee!!!'. Is that that show?

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

Fraggle Rock, and last time I watched it was on TV2, but that was when I was already a teenager.

[jamaisneutral.livejournal.com]

kristien Hemmerechts!!!
Did you glance at her from time to time to see what she did on the train?

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

She was proofreading some things, as far as I could see. :D

[jamaisneutral.livejournal.com]

oooh you should've snatched it out of her hands and demanded to beta! :)
and then have her call the police on you...
suffer post traumatic stress disorder and never write a thing in her life again... no, can't have that.