Sadness

Sometimes I get an idea in my head and its hard for me to let go, I am not a worry-wart like my loving wife, but I do sometimes have a tendency to gnaw at ideas in my head and not let them go. What I have been thinking about lately is relationships. Family and friendships and the like, and the unfortunate tendency for people to misuse and abuse their relationships and not care who they are hurting. Let me explain a little better. Regular readers of my blog know that I come from a large family - having 9 siblings and 16 nieces and nephews. What most people do not realize is that for all extents and purposes my family is much smaller as there is always factions and someone is mad at someone else or is holding a grudge over something absurdly stupid. What it also meaans is that nobody can seem to let go of old petty jealousies and rivalries and so there is no closeness in my family - how sad. I have tried to make up for this in my own life by establishing relationships with my nieces and nephews and ignoring my brothers and sisters who are still mad at me for imagined or real childhood slights. What I have a guilty conscience about is the ones that I have not been able to establish a rapport with or the ones that barely know me because of limitations put on them by their parents. I will admit there are some of my nieces and nephews that I am closer to than others, sometimes because of the effort put out by their parents or because I feel some sort of familia bond with them. What has hurt me recently has been the lack of effort on the part of my family to get to know my new son, even by the family members that I am closer to, its as if nobody cares about bonds any more. What's worse is that the same malaise has crept over and is affecting my wife's family. Is it something about today's society that makes it easier for family to ignore the bonds that bind them together? What about friends? Some of my friends are very happy for my wife and I while others have taken our new son and the restrictions inherent in having a toddler as an excuse to grow distant. I have not felt this isolated since I lost a lot of my friends when I was the first one in my circle to get married and my pals drifted away, lost in their own worlds of dating and partying. My wife makes new friends easily and just replaces her caual friends with new ones as they fall by the wayside. On the other hand, I am really beginning to miss the old friends of my teenage years, as I just do not seem to meet anybody anymore who is my age and shares at least a few common interests. I guess I am as guilty as the next person in not realizing the value of something that I had once and slowly let drift away like smoke from extinguished campfire. Please leave a comment or two and let me know what you think. Tell me if it is just my anti-social tendencies and recluseness rearing its head or does the world change as you get older...