Atlanta, GA

just a few notes i brought back with me from my trip to Atlanta:

-- i lament marriage. its not just because i had a bad time at my cousin's wedding. its not because i think i'll probably never get married. its because marriage is so good at stealing people away from the world around them. i find it difficult and troubling that one other person can be your life's answer. that doesn't make sense to me. it doesn't make sense that when you get married you can't do anything by yourself, and you have to trade in all of your single friends for married ones. most of all it doesn't make sense why anyone would willingly walk into that situation knowing that is exactly what will happen. i want my cousin to be happy and i hope her marriage is everything she dreams it will be. and if it is, then all the better for her, but i'll still lament marriage. Jessica is the second of my cousins in my uncle's very large family to get married; she is my sister's age. Malinda, who is my age, was married about three years ago -- she just had a baby. every time my family has gone to Atlanta to visit, my sister and i have never failed to have a bonding experience with them. with the exception of this time. now they are married; starting families...creating lives of their own. no longer seeking or searching out themselves and the world around them. that is a part of their lives that they have chosen to set aside, and it is the very same part i've decided to devote my life to. i feel as if i can no longer connect with them...

-- i never resent growing up in buffalo more than when i go to atlanta to see our family there. the only family members my sister and i ever had that were anywhere close to our age were Malinda and Jessica, who are our age to within a couple of months. visits only took place about ever two or three years -- airfare was expensive, money was always tight, and my grandmother could give my mom a headache over the phone, much less in person. i always loved going. we went to atlanta so few times i have a vague recollection of my first meeting with my father's mother: no, your grandmother does not want to be called 'grandma,' she wants to you call her 'Sitti.' Grandaddy was always Grandaddy, but Sitti was lebanese, and in lebanese, grandmas were called sittis. she was the grand matriarch of my father's family; she was amazing; overly dramatic, often drunk, always eccentric and forever the most madly outrageous,hysterical, enchanting and generous person i will ever meet. this is the first time i've been back to atlanta since her funeral and its just not the same. Grandaddy gets along ok, Malinda and Jessica still live in the area, as do their parents, and their syblings, my nine other cousins (Steven, Esther, David, Joseph, Lela, Christina, John, Suzannah, and Emily).......but really, Sitti was the lynchpin of the family. She always made herself the center of attention, andwhatever frustrations that might have caused people in the past, now that she's gone we've lost the center around which we now realize we've loved gathering around. everytime i've been to atlanta, i've thought about moving there -- there is family, a beautiful city, no lack of entertainments...i had fantasized about hanging out with Sitti and Grandaddy, eating endless meals of her gourmet cooking, getting close to my cousins. and now...Sitti is gone, my cousins are married off, and the family feels disbanded. we all share a name, but now, at family gatherings, there will always be a reason for someone to leave early, a new baby to attend to, another holiday party they have to make...their lives shredded and tossed over a field of commitments with no hope of ever recovering the old, if uncultivated bonds we had formed as kids. i took a nap on Sitti's bed, it was the first thing i did when i got to the house -- my grandparents always slept in separate rooms, and my Grandaddy has kept her room exactly the same since she died. i laid down on it and i wanted to cry. i did, almost. i hate growing up. i hate getting older. i hate it when people die, i hate it when things change. and everything in atlanta has changed. all these people are my family, and i hardly know them. my Sitti is dead, and my cousins are married...what can i do now? i wish i could listen to Sitti's stories about Europe in the 50's, and my dad as a kid. i wish i could still revel with Malinda in our shared black-sheepery in the Bowman family. i resent never having any family bonds, the way other people have. i missed out on the cousin/best friend, and dinner at grandma's on sundays. i missed out on knowing my own family. i don't know my own family and it is a sin. it is something i hate, and am ashamed of and jealous for, and now there is nothing i can do about it.