Reunited

Usually when you go to a reunion
you meet with a side of your grandparents' family,
awkwardly ask how each other is doing,
make boring small talk for 5-10 minutes,
and then never talk to them again until the next reunion 5 years later.

Luckily I got a little something more
from my weekend in Myrtle Beach.
And no, I don't mean darker skin and a random hook up.
Although I actually did get one of those. [no wink wink nudge nudge :-/]

As little time as I spent in Jersey these past four years I've spent even less time talking to my family.
It's not like I was trying to be the anti-Peter Griffin or anything.
You see, in order to stay in touch with most family members
you need to ring them up on the telly.
I loathe talking on the phone.
But it's not just that.
I was basically the baby of the family on my mother's side before my sister had her kids,
and it happens to be very hard to break out of the mentality of staying out of grown folks business or even carrying a normal conversation with them.

I have two cousins that are between me and my sister's age (we're 12.5 years apart)
but they decided not to come to the reunion,
work schedules and distance and whatnot.
So I was left to hang with the old folks on the drive down to Myrtle Beach.
Said old folks include: my mom, her parents, and her aunt.
What I expected to be a boring ride was;
I slept the entire way down.

However once we pit-stopped at my sister's house in North Carolina, the laughs rolled.
This is mainly because anytime my sister and I are in the same room
we pick on our mother or just crack joke after joke.
My mom is dorky and funny most of the time too.
The real surprise came from watching my grandparents interact.
They've been married for over 50 years and still act like kids sometimes.
My grandpa'll make a crack at my grandma or poke her and she'll start to jokingly fuss.
When my grandfather fell asleep in the car himself,
she poked him until he woke up.
Little things like that made me feel like I could talk to them.

Once we got down to Myrtle Beach,
we were joined by my uncle,
a few cousins my mom's age,
and a couple of my grandma's siblings.
When I tell you we kept to ourselves, we kept to ourselves.
The way the reunion was set up
each family just did whatever until the banquet on the last day.
They didn't even have a proper meet and greet.
You could have been standing in line at a water park
and not even realize the family in front of you were your distance cousins.
After a while you kinda just assume anyone black is related to you. [hooray for enforcing stereotypes!]

Now even though my immediate family was either born in Newark (and its surrounding areas) and/or lived there for the latter part of their life,
we are still a pretty bougie, highfalutin bunch.

"Don't trust them new niggas
over yonder..."

We expect things to have class and order.
So when we went to the banquet, we came through in nice summer dresses, linen suits, and shirt and slacks.
In return, we were greeted with stank eyes aplenty.
I looked around the ballroom
and saw negroes in shorts, tees, raunchy attire.
I judged them so hard as they stared us down.

You see, this reunion was so extended that my grandmother's maiden name wasn't even on the program.
I'm guessing it was her mother's side of the family.
Well, they suck.
Damn southerners.
I felt so unwanted I didn't even stay for the dance portion of the evening,
and ya'll know how much I love to show out on an actual dancefloor.

But being so excluded from the rest of the family
kinda made my immediate relatives tighter.
We banded together and had our own damn fun
without being bothered with the rest of them.

So while I've been focused on only relying on my friends these past few years,
it's nice to know I have family I can actually reach out and talk to when I'm ready to.
Because as much as I tried to deny it in the past,
in the end you've got nothing if you don't have family.
Word.