Family

I don't know how many of you have read the book on the road by Jack Kerouak but I'm in the middle of my second time through.  I'm at the point where Sal is on his way back home after his first travels across the country.  He's already met and stayed with the Mexican girl and how now decided that it's time for him to go back home... to New York... in October and suddenly I got real homesick.  It doesn't matter how much fun that I'm having or how many people I've met or how exciting and interesting my life is at the moment, I will always get homesick around this time of year.

I think what I miss most is my sisters.  They're like my partners in crime.  I've grown up teaching them how to get away with the bad things that all kids do and telling them of my misadventures yet always trying to instill a good set of values.  It's weird how much influence you have as an older brother.  I've been telling my sisters for years that I want to move to California and I swear I get a little tear in my eye when I hear their plans for the future that involve them moving to California so that we can all be together.  I'm so proud of them for every little accomplishment that they have and for their strong sense of family.  My older-younger sister Jessica really wanted to go away for college next year but decided to stay because my younger-younger sister Alyssa said that she would miss her a lot if she left.

I picture the three of us in California and what our lives would be like.  My sisters would both be in college at that point and I should be getting settled teaching or writing or doing what I do now.  I'd be able to be their source of advice through some very important years of their life and for a period of time we'd be like a united family again only different, getting ready for a brand new stage in all of our lives. We are each trying to grow into adulthood together and help each other along as the stupid little pitfalls of life hit us and try to bring us down. 

There has been speculation lately as to whether I will be able to travel home this Christmas to spend it with my family.  Being the rookie here I get the short end of the stick with leave time.  I've been fighting to get those days off and they are trying to help me out because they realize how important it is to me but I'm not sure whether the trip will happen.  My sister said that she refused to open presents without me present, and that she would wait until I came home if it came to that, or that the whole family would come over here to visit me and ski this Christmas.  In essence she has decided to boycott Christmas this year if I can't come home or if they can't come here, just that little firecracker in her soul trying to make things happen.

It's funny because a lot that I have learned in my life has come through books and movies and sit-coms.  Not that my parents haven't taught me a lot and done their best to bring me up right.  I've just taken a lot from the different mediums of entertainment that I've engulfed myself in over the years and apply it to my life when I can.  A huge part of my "entertainment-upbringing" is contained in both the book and the movie the Godfather.  Not that I go around killing people or having people kiss my finger. It's more of the humanistic values and behaviors, the lessons about how to conduct business and everyday life. The older I get the more apparent and relevant this becomes and I find myself strictly adhering to many of their rules of guidance. 

I like to think of myself as a young Michael Corleone taking over the family that was never involved in organized crime.  I'm turning into what Michael Corleone was supposed to be.  Before his father was shot and the war broke out.  Before he took it upon himself to take care of the family business and abandon the normal life that had been afforded to him by his father.  I'm the Michael Corleone that never had to flee to Sicily but plans to visit Sicily out of curiosity in my roots.

I was told recently that I didn't act like the typical Italian.  Well part of that may be that I am not full Italian but actually more Hispanic than anything else but my counter was that the side of Italian that I am like is not the stereotypical one that is shown most often on the television screen.  I'm not a very possessive person.  I don't have the stereotypical Italian accent (which is really a New York Brooklyn or Bronx accent).  I don't wear a big gold chain around my neck and walk around in a jumpsuit.  And I definitely don't drive a Camaro with a bat in the back.  But my uncle does.