That Grinds My Gears

I'm big on family. No, huge on family. I have two brothers and two sisters, a nephew, and a wonderful extended family of aunts and uncles and in-laws and grandparents and cousins. And don't forget the spirit on my shoulder who I call mom. I love to attend family functions. It feels as if I really try to make time to talk/see/visit my family. In college, I went home at least once a month to visit. Post college, I lived closer to home and went to visit as often as possible. Sometimes multiple weekends in a row. Maybe this is abnormal. Although, not once have I heard complaints that I'm coming around all too often. We always use the time to catch up, go shopping, or make a fancy meal.

So maybe I am being close-minded when I say that I can't understand those people who make a special effort to stay away from their perfectly nice family. I can understand not wanting to be around a not-so-nice family member... I have a few members of my brood in that same category. Who doesn't? When you're parents invite you to dinner and you make some lame excuse to get out of spending time with them, when a family member offers up a word of advice and you disregard it completely, when you talk badly about family to other people, when you can't pick up a phone once a month to give someone a call... these things I don't understand. What kind of person can give such blatant disregard for the people with whom you share a familial connection?

In the wise words of Peter Griffin, that really grinds my gears.