The purpose behind bad reunions:

I was listening to The New Yorker's fiction podcast titled "Reunion" this week, which is about a boy who sets up a brief meeting with his estranged father. In short, the boy was excited about the visit, but the father's knack for belittling everyone he came in contact with and being immensely belligerent (probably due to his drinking) made you wonder if the boy was questioning why he wanted to meet him to begin with. So the boy said goodbye, because he had to catch a train, and the story ended.

At first glance the story doesn't appear to have a point; therefore, I was trying to decide what the point was. I think I figured out that sometimes we long to see a particular person that has been absent from our lives (estranged parents, ex's, friends, etc) and when we actually get a chance to see that person, we rediscover the very reason for their absence to begin with. In this situation, the boy didn't have a choice, but often we break of ties with people, forget our reasoning behind the break-up, and bring them back into our lives; only to discover we were right the first time.

The story hit home because it correlates my own life over the last couple of weeks, but also because everyone seems to face the same situation at some point in their life. For example, my mom recently visited my from the Northwest. After a few days of staying with my sister and driving her completely insane, they both decided to cut the trip short. My mom has issues she needs to work out and my sister is too busy to play "parent" to her own mother. I think there is always this sense of disappointment after something like this happens because we have these expectations of how certain relationships in our lives (especially parent-child) are supposed to be and when they don't turn out that way, we feel a void where something is missing. We also sometimes blame ourselves for things not working out.

This all sounds a little depressing, but I also think these little meet-ups can be a good thing. For instance, in this boy's situation or say an ex-boyfriend/girlfriend, after seeing why we left someone behind, we can finally let go of that unrealistic dream of reuniting and get on with our lives. Those "dreams" and unrealistic recollections of souvenirs of the past can hold us back from appreciating the good things in life. I guess absence makes the heart grow fonder, but "Reunions" bring our minds back to reality. So that was my giant epiphany for this week! Let it go...