Today, we went to visit Chris’s paternal grandmother for about two hours, then spent about five hours at his aunt and uncle’s home nearby. The funny thing is that we spent five hours at his aunt and uncle’s home, yet we didn’t even realize that time had passed that quickly because there was so much to talk about between running around with their grandchildren, who they were babysitting for the weekend.

I thought about my lunch with my aunt last Tuesday before we left for Australia, and I realize how much of a far cry these conversations today were versus the very shallow conversation with my own aunt. My aunt is a well-meaning, happy, good person, but she just doesn’t have it in her to have a conversation with me past very surface level topics. She will ask me, “how is work?” But if I were to say anything more than “good” or “okay” or “terrible,” she wouldn’t know how to react or respond. She will ask me if I am planning to have children shortly after the wedding, and I will respond yes, no, or maybe, and that would be the end of that topic. There’s no deeper digging, no topic that develops past the first question and answer, and some answers are too complex or painful or long for her to fully be interested or engaged in. Tonight, we discussed our wedding preparations, everything from how we chose a photographer to the questions that he would ask us leading up to the wedding to prepare for the wedding day. I could never have that conversation with my aunt… or any of my aunts or uncles who are on my side at all.

As Tolstoy once wrote famously in his epic novel Anna Karenina, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” All families have problems. All relationships have problems. But not all families and relationships see the same issues as “problems.” I’m positive my aunt doesn’t see our shallow conversations as a problem, but I do. I feel like she will never really know me. Even my dad asks me deeper questions than my aunt.

But this is my family. They are who they are, and our relationships aren’t going to change. So, as per usual, I have to keep reminding myself that I need to accept these situations as they are — not capable of change. And that’s okay because I can find deeper conversation with Chris’s family members and a select few of my own friends.