"There is nothing more important to a man than his family."
-Vito Corleone
I am very fond of an occasional drink. I have grown to enjoy the taste of most kinds of alcohol, I love trying out new drinks and I love the feeling of a slight high when you have just had the right amount of alcohol that is so conducive to brilliant conversations without you really toppling over or losing control. Yet, sometimes I get smashed, maybe puke and lose control over myself and worst of all, someone has to take care of me. Sometimes, one gets silly and it is fun for people around you until they have o take care of you and it is certainly no fun for yourself. Every time one of these bouts of uncontrolled drinking occur, I get very bothered. No one likes not to be in control (I especially abhor it), I don't like being silly and I hate the idea of someone having to take care of me. Most of all, I feel very embarrassed at being a nuisance. For some strange reason, off late, these experiences are accompanied by me imagining my father's disapproving gaze.
For someone not really close to his family, I love to talk (and think) about mine. I often wonder about how my father would judge all my actions, what remark my siblings would have to make. It's actually funny because all my life, I have been something of a rebel. I have always tried to chart my own path, bristled under the weight of any filial expectations, however little of it there might have been, notions of family unity suffocate me, in fact sometimes just being around my own people for too long makes me uncomfortable. Yet, I could bore you with intricate details of my childhood and family. Hell, some day I even want to chronicle my family history in a book! The truth is that however further I move, images of where I came from remain around me. I have started resembling my father, my voice and the way I speak or get angry is a lot like my brother, my story-telling abilities are a throwback to my uncle, I am gradually becoming a person a lot like my sister and I am beginning to believe, I search for my mother's sense of equanimity in the women in my life.
There is a line in Before Sunrise where Ethan Hawke says, "Everybody's parents fuck them up. You know, rich kids' parents gave them too much, poor kids' not enough. Too much attention, not enough attention. They either left them, or you know, they stuck around and taught them the wrong things."
This is very true and I don't really mean in a bad way, necessarily. We are what we were brought up with, what our parents and siblings are, inane childhood incidents which left a stamp on us. We are in some ways defined by our neurosis, and mostly, it all goes back to the four letter word called home.
