Answering a Random Question

I was stuck on something to write tonight so I thought I'd go random. The plan is to open "The Book of Questions" by Gregory Stock, Ph.D. to a given question and answer it, whatever it is. Maybe it will be interesting, maybe it won't. I guess we'll have to see how it works!

I asked Shad to give me a random number. He picked 197, so let's go.

What has been your biggest disappointment in life? Your biggest failure? I can't tell you how tempted I am to change the number that Shad picked or fudge on the question, but we made a deal here so I guess I'll stick with the question.

One of my biggest personal failures/disappointments is my failure to maintain close family relationships. Growing up my parents were good about making sure that we saw both my maternal and paternal grandparents. I remember going out to my mom's parents' house every Sunday evening, often meeting my aunt and cousins, and spending an hour or two with my grandparents. I don't remember how often we got to my dad's parents' house (which was catty-cornered from my parents' house growing up) but it seems like it was quite a bit. As I got older I tended to opt out of those trips and visited only on holidays and other rare occasions. Now my paternal grandparents have both passed away as well as my maternal grandmother, leaving only my mom's dad. One would assume that I would be a lot better about keeping in contact with him, but that has not been the case. For Pete's sake, he lives a mile and a half down the road and I can't think of the last time that I saw him anywhere outside of my parents' house.

I know that part of this is attributable to my hermit-like nature. For the most part, I don't like "public" very much and given the opportunity I tend to withdraw. I think I also think that my own self-expectations might be too high - like if I were to go over there I should spend at least an hour engaged in witty conversation about members of the family that I don't know, never met and/or haven't seen since I was three. Yet I know that at some point I'm going to regret not going over there more, not asking more questions about my great-grandparents, etc.

How's this - I'm letting you know that some time between now and Sunday, I will go to my grandpa's house, just to say "hi" and check in with him. I won't put a time limit on the visit and won't put any undue expectations on myself.

See, blogging can be good for you!

*Holy Jeeze! Remind me not to let Shad pick the number anymore!*