Relationships, part 16
So a few Saturdays ago I got a friend request from one of my nephews. I know for a fact I blocked him once before so it seems he made a new account. I had toyed with the idea of opening a dialogue to see what he wanted...but I was hesitant.
I’ve been an uncle since birth. He’s a year older than me and his brother is a year younger than me. The 3 of us were pretty much inseparable until our teenage years when self discovery started. THAT was when the drift started. When my sister outed me, I don’t think it helped.
After seeking the advice of friends, people on Facebook and a mostly ignored plea on Instagram, I decided to go ahead and take the next step and talk to him. This was the beginning of a conversation that I've had a feeling in my gut was coming for some time. I've been having thoughts/feelings about my biological family for a while now because I had a feeling that maybe, just maybe, not all of them were against me. It could also be the creeping realization that age is catching up to us all and there's only so much time we have left.
Some of my more prominent memories of this guy aren't exactly pleasant ones, so I decided to err on the side of caution and message him anyway, but with contingencies in mind. So far everything has been fine and the conversations have been civil. I'm just wondering about a few things that he said during our conversations.
He wants me to meet his new wife, Angel. I'm not opposed to the idea, but I'm not really thrilled with it either. After I worked up the courage to ask him what happened with the other girl he married - Hayley - he told me that after 9 years she cheated on him. That definitely opened up a flood gate of emotions when I told him I'd been cheated on twice. That was when I outed myself to him. He asked if I was currently seeing anyone and I said yes, his name is Matt. He seemed cool with it and didn't freak out about it or anything. I told him that I was glad that he didn't flip out over and his response is what I've been mulling over since he said it:
"Hell no man I'm not going to freak out on ya. That's who you are and we wouldn't have it any other way. No judgement here. From any of us."
So does 'we' mean just him and Angel, or is he speaking for our whole family? Was this all just a huge misunderstanding from the get go and I've been living with the assumption that I'm not liked by my family? I don't know. I also really don't know if I want to even bother finding out. How the fuck do you establish a dialogue with a group of people that you haven't seen or spoken to in nearly 20 years? If in fact I've been mistaken all this time, then perhaps the record should show that maybe I was wrong. And if in fact, that's not the case and I'm just looking at things through rose colored glasses, then perhaps trying to establish a dialogue or even seeing my family again after all this time is possibly the worst idea I've ever had.
For the time being, I'm going to keep the dialogue with him open and hope for the best.