Secrets and Lies

Families eh?  Someone I know is having very bad trouble with their family - it makes you think about the whole thing.  


We've all got one.  You can choose your friends but not your family - that's certainly true.  And your friends don't love you from any kind of obligation or desire to replicate their DNA strand.


In sociology you talk about the 'nuclear' and 'extended' family.  The nuclear family is so called, I suppose, because an atom consists of some electrons circling a nucleus of protons and neutrons - mum, dad and kids then?  


My nuclear family would be my mum and dad and two brothers.  My mum had me pretty late by the standards of 1974, when she was 39.  My brothers were nearly adults when I was born so there is a big age gap.  Consequently I've always looked up to them and hero-worshipped them a bit, but I've never really been important enough in their world for them to pay much attention.


Boo hoo - poor me.  It's just the thing with families isn't it - these dynamics of sadness and regret and longing.  Now they have a sister so the dynamic is going to change somewhat.  Not sure how much they've thought about that.  


They are good though - supportive.  Just a little..er... distant.


My relationship with my mum and dad is good though - in fact my relationship with my mum gets better and better, after years of arguments about that whole 'transgender' thing.  We hug now - which is pretty remarkable, believe me.  AND she offered to lend me a petticoat because my dress was see-through.  Wow!


You do have to think about how you'll feel when they're gone - especially when they are in their 70s, as my parents are.  I don't want to regret what I did and didn't do.  


But some parents are just not there, or are downright abusive, and all you can do is surround yourself with other people, other families.  Alternative families. Strange quark families, maybe.  The people I love are my family - sometimes we are related, sometimes they are in my life for a few weeks, sometimes a day, maybe forever - but all the time I love them, they are my family, and I love them all the time.


An excellent film about families is Mike Leigh's superb 'Secrets and Lies'.  The title sums up what a lot of families are like - as does one character's almost Shakespearian soliloquy towards the end of the film : 


'Secrets and lies!  We're all in pain... why can't we share our pain...?'


I won't tell you the story if you haven't seen it but I can only say it means a lot to me as a depiction of the problems families have and, ultimately, the love that keeps them together.


It's also extremely funny.  Watch it.  And let it be a gateway to the wonderful work of the greatest British film-maker alive :  Mike Leigh.  That's another blog though...