Okay so I was talking to one of you and was asked if I thought that our family was close. I thought that was in interesting question and since I grew up NOT close to my brothers, I could honestly say that we are close as a family.
Since then, I have thought a lot about being close and what close means. I know that each of you grew up not knowing your cousins that is not close. I could probably count on one hand the number of times that I visited Larry or Bill as you were growing up. Bill maybe never. That is not close. Before Larry moved back to SLC I had virtually no contact with him and Bill and I exchanged calls on birthdays and Christmas. That is not close.
Now that I have told you what I think close is NOT, what is close? I have to admit I do not have an answer for what is close. I do believe that what is close to one may not be close to another. I would be interested to know how you would define a family being close.
Dad
I feel like being close is at the very least knowing what is going on in the other person's life and contacting them for important dates or events. That generally requires some form of communication with the other person on a reasonably consistent basis.
ReplyDeleteI would vaguely define closeness in terms of emotion. To be close, you have to establish a meaningful emotional connection with another person. Its strength is measured by the amount of emotion you have invested in the relationship. I think that to establish a basic emotional connection with someone, Greg is right: you have to take an interest in knowing what is going on in the other person's life beyond the obvious. Sometimes we think we have nothing to talk about, or that our lives are boring and nothing eventful really happens from day to day. That's not ever true. We are emotional beings with feelings and thoughts and opinions about everything. If we don't think we have anything to share or anything to report, its probably because we don't care to share our thoughts, feelings, and emotions with others around us. I don't think knowing what is going on in another person's life is as much about knowing what kind of breakfast cereal they ate this morning, but about knowing how they feel about that breakfast cereal and why they chose it.
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