Karmic Cogs
When I think about it, it really couldn't have gone any differently.
It wasn't a case of old habits dying hard, but it certainly was more of the same. I had no business expecting the outcome would be any different or that anything significant would come from it. People are, after all, just people. I suppose it was my vanity or my ever-present hubris that led me to believe it would.
My, how some things never change.
(Yeah, you, Jeff.)
"They'd" appeared among my DNA matches, and I admit their peculiar placement—as a relative of both my mother and my father—piqued my interest. There was also a thumbnail portrait of someone who looked to represent the better results for my genetic pool, which didn't hurt either. What can I say? I was curious. I had to look. I had to reach out. I had to know more.
Who was this shining star atop my ancestral metropolis?
The initial contact was status quo, but the real connection came from their own particular dilemma. They shared a conundrum: they believed their father had been switched at birth with another baby at a Midwestern hospital decades ago. I mean, who could resist asking to help with a mystery like that? Who would have believed that I would eventually solve said mystery, putting pen to paper, then, via the use of genetic testing, to prove my conclusions right? Chalk up one for me on the score of resolving someone’s ancestral mystery.
Hey, that doesn’t happen ever.
From there, things just spread out.
I became fascinated by their ancestry and whatever crossover events and personalities existed simultaneously in history with mine. There were so many of them! As I did so, I began to notice what I considered to be important persons and/or historical events in their particular branches of the family tree. I asked myself: Was I seeing all this correctly? I volunteered to look further. They were receptive and indeed committed to the process. They were helpful. Before long, I had helped them map a clear, verified path back to four hundred years ago and to significant figures in history.
From there, I kept at it when I probably should have stopped. However, there were more ancestral discoveries to be made. I kept asking them and myself, "Did you know?" It felt good to share these discoveries via my limited abilities with an audience with whom I shared so many ancestral ties. I'm curious now, though: Was it the smartest thing to do? I mean, what was this? Kinsmanship? Friendship?
The lines were blurry to me. Hubris, they call you by your other name, "Jeff."
My initial thought, of course, should have been to exit stage left gracefully, but lacking good sense and holding onto old illusions, I committed myself to the long haul. I mean, after all, they were and are good people. We were kinsmen too, and truth be told, I was honored in a way. They were family.
I told myself everything was fine. After all, "they" were necessarily derived somehow from my own tribe and me from theirs. Albeit distant, they were (and are) still "six-ways-to-Sunday," genetically my own folks. They were polite and occasionally even shared things with me. Yet, it soon became clear that while we might be from the same phylum, our genera swam in different waters. I don’t say this in a bad way. I only say it to point out that there are many branches in anyone’s family tree.
(I think I may be on the "wintered leaf" branch....or the one that branches off directly from a fine family of respectable polywogs. :)
My curiosity quickly revealed the extent of their world.
Unlike me, these were people who had descended from immense wealth. My, how the branches of one's tree do twist and turn with the fates?!?! They were people with acting and modeling credits, magazine covers, and connections to international conglomerates. They were people who’d bred champion race horses for well over a century. Well beyond this, they were and are the descendants of a long line of inventors, statesmen, philanthropists, and politicians whose roots stretched back to a Gilded Age of Edwardians - and before. How the Hell could they be related to me genetically, culturally, or otherwise?
Not to mention my very purple sense of politics and existential philosophies. Egads.
Were the Gods playing tricks on this old man's mine, yet again?
This stark reality made me question my presence and my assumption of building a friendship with a distant kinsman. What the heck was I doing here? I didn’t see any backyard barbecues or canoeing trips coming up. Yeah, no. I didn't ever see them darkening my doorway or the telephone ringing just to say a surprise,
"Hey, what's up?"
Why am I constantly trying to prove myself worthy? Ugh. It sure isn't a concept that they were ever going to relate to. What does 'perfect' have to relate to? Did they ever struggle? Not that I wish that on them or anyone, still, it is so curious.
Are my kinsmen simply the smoke and mirrors of what was moored at Cape Cod harbor four hundred years ago?
Would I prove to be just an embarrassment?
Ya know, like that proverbial crazy uncle from Poughkeepsie nobody likes to talk about.
At least, that made sense.
In my mind, I felt the familiar pang of old-school life dramas, yet again, the sandpapery feeling of déjà vu. It was as if Kierkegaard's concept of Repetition was still being whispered in my ear.
"Leave it alone, Jeff. Do yourself a favor and just get lost. Go away ya weirdo."
Over time, the signs became undeniable. My journeyman expertise in tracing their ancestry—which had been valuable and even serendipitous for them—has/had fairly well come to an end. I could see that I was sort of their last past version of "last month's employee of the month." LOL.
They were and are so busy, with a wonderful and beautiful growing family, and with, after all, race horses to breed and international destinations to chase. Am I saying all that correctly? Talk about clueless. Insert my picture right about here. They were wonderfully busy in that "laissez-faire noblesse oblige" sort of way - yet all the while being truly decent and kind. Yet I could see something beyond the pale. Not that absolutely anything at all about them was any part 400-year-old "smoke and mirrors," no, it was and could never be that. Because you see, they really are good folks.
It was, in a word, simply absence.
It was something that just doesn't exist. Perhaps it never did.
I began to see it in the smallest ways. Was this odd of me?
When isn't it, Jeff?
You see, they have never once inquired after me personally; they never asked my wife's name or health, or about my children, their names, or what they did. No one ever asked anything ordinary like, "Do you have a dog?" "What was college like?" "Do you plant your bulbs in the spring or the fall?"
Or even better, "Jeff, I've had such a shitty day, you got a moment to listen? "
Of course I do.
And leave it to me to overshare. Yeah, that'd scare the best of them.
Kinsmen or stranger alike.
I wish they could have seen that I am as loyal as the best dog they'd ever had.
Yet, I got the picture.
Yet, there was no interest in me or mine. It didn't occur to them to ask. I don’t believe there was anything nefarious here or solipsistic in their ways. Not at all. It wasn't that my life didn't matter to them, but rather that they simply (beyond asking whether I leaned politically right or left), or if I was a "believer in Christ," - just really wasn't all that important to the genealogy at hand.
Note: NONE of this was bad. They are not bad. They are not selfish. They are, in fact, pretty fucking amazing.
I guess I must expect too much?
I know, I know, poor me. Seriously, Jeff? Get over yourself.
At first, this was acceptable. I mean, what did I expect from a stranger, kinsmen, or otherwise? They introduced me to other influential people, utterly amazing folks who needed my services, which was flattering and provided a small, much-needed stipend for an old man on a fixed budget. (Beware, Jeff, the old voices say: money ruins everything.) These were good people who were excited and curious about their ancestry, too. But these folks were busy with their own wealthy lives. Funny though, at least they took the time to reach out. I so appreciate it too. Yet, in the end, there's no one there.
Nobody really gives a shit.
Ultimately, nothing morally wrong has happened in any of this. The problem lies only in the "destitutions" of my own childhood, indeed, those of my mind. Those same destitutions that have always made me hope someone I was interested in knowing just might be interested in knowing me, too.
What a dumb ass. Like they could relate to me? Like, I could relate to the Uberfolk? Right.
"Fa-la-la-la-la...and a partridge in a pear tree."
How is it that I always end up trying to play in the Big Kid's Sandbox....
I guess that isn't even really a question.
It's funny, though, how one really does come to care about them. How odd. Is it in the mix? Is it in the karma, or is it just another innate deception contained in the cogs and levers or the machinations of the gene pool? The truth, however, is clear: there is no "silvery icing" on the cake of life beyond simply doing a kind thing genealogically for someone. Nor should there be. My initial intentions may have been tainted by a desire for personal connection, but the reality is they never truly saw me. There was no reason for them to. I mean, really, why? I was a means to an end, the "karmic cog" in the wheel of their ancestral discovery. And really, it's been quite an honor. I hope I wasn't so full of myself that I actually thought I could see them either.
They deserve so much better than that.
The truth is, though, once the lever was pushed and the hidden ancestry revealed, there was no longer "any reason" for more cogs, or levers, or ancestral karmic interludes.
There were no more cogs to be had. But hey, if wishes were turds....
(Okay, that was kinda funny and you know it. Lol.)
I can only hope that I have remained curious, faithful, and loyal to my own ideals, and that my self-imposed disillusionment hasn't tainted my interactions with them. I would be very embarrassed if that is the case. And yes, if you must know, I like them as people. Ugh. I hope too that I have been respectful, not too cloying, indecisive, or indeed too "individual" or personal in my conversations. I am now doing my best to extricate myself—to quietly and slowly move on with dignity, and to simply leave well enough alone. That is the proper way to get it all sorted.
It is the only graceful thing to do.
In the end, all I can say is what any genetic kinsman might say to another,
"Wishing you all the best, dear Brother?"
Peace out.
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