I'm in an observation phase and I'm having fun!
Have you ever stopped to think about what your family is like from the point of view of someone who is not part of it? It's very funny, because we think that our family is super normal and that the problem is always in others!
Here we are in four brothers. The middle one is three years younger than me and the other two, who are twins, are nine years apart from me. I don't need to say the hell I lived in… There's only one thing: I can speak ill of them, you can't!
My mother was always stressed and walked around with flip-flops in her purse. For my father, the world could end and he wouldn't even blink (that hasn't changed until today…).
On car rides, if someone touched their sweaty leg to the other, the jigsaw would begin. My father drove as if nothing was happening, but my mother was already taking her flip-flops out of her bag and screaming and sitting with her flip-flops on us. All crazy? No way. My family is normal, yours is not!
And you, who worked and studied all week and planned to sleep late on the weekend, could you? Of course. His brothers decided to play football in the hallway of the rooms because it's so much cooler than playing in the backyard. Playing in the hallway, the ball hits the bedroom door and it's much more fun. And that was my alarm clock. The sound of the ball slamming into the door screaming “Gooooool!”.
This is not for the weak. I would get up screaming and send everyone running. But soon they were back, because it's much cooler to play in the hallway of the rooms than in the backyard. But my family is normal, yours is not!
My mother put pepper in our mouths when we swore. This I learned quickly. And when my brothers inadvertently swore… Ah! It was my turn, pepper them! But we are all normal.
Once my middle brother and I had a bad attitude and my dad said, “When you get home, you will each get three slippers.”
My brother was the first. Before my turn, I ran into the bedroom and tucked a pillow under my dress and walked over to my dad. And as agreed, I took the three slippers. All very well! My brother crying, me laughing and no one understanding anything, just me. I even showed him the pillow! We all laughed together and I took the three slippers again, this time for real, but my father, amused by what had happened, didn't punish me as hard as he had slapped my brother before. But my family is normal, yours is not.
We all had our duties. I was responsible for washing the dishes and my middle brother for drying and putting away. How many times I, as soon as everyone finished dinner, ran to wash the dishes, but he would go to the living room, calmly, watch TV and wait for the dishes to drain by themselves so I just had to put them away… That made me furious! So much so that, sometimes, close to the time he used to go to do the easy task, I would run away and throw water on top of the dishes in the drying rack! This gave a hot plate at home that you can't even imagine!
Once, my twin brothers decided to climb the bookcase in the living room and knocked the television to the floor. My mother almost had a heart attack. Another time, we lived on the 17th floor and the home secretary who worked from home left the balcony open. At that time, there was no screen. My mother had gone downstairs to get a letter from the concierge and when she looked up she saw my brother hanging on the balcony while I danced to the music and 'Magic Balloon' in the living room. This time, she almost had a heart attack. But my family is normal, yours is not!
In another situation, my middle brother and one of the twins slapped each other when my parents weren't around. As the one in the middle was bigger, he caught the smaller one with his legs and slapped him in the face, turning him all red. My mother arrived and found the youngest in tears. When he went to tell him what happened, the bigger one came forward and said that he jokingly dragged his face on the carpet. She believed! Guess who got some slippers? Not to mention the fights and more fights between them, which turned into bets and ended in more fights…
And it is not so? We will always think that others don't mix well and that we are normal, super normal! When those heated arguments start, there will always be the stubborn, the appeaser, the 'on the fence', the maker and that doesn't change. I always look at my husband and sing softly: “Family, family, daddy, mommy, auntie”… Big Titans!
And today, when we meet, all practically married, each one with their quirks, I practically feel like that one in a scene from 'The Big Family.
We sat at the table, that chatter, cut conversation, laughter, arguments and a certainty:
“This family is very close
And also very weedy
Fight for any reason
But they end up asking for forgiveness.”
But my family is normal, yours is not!
