The family cottage has played a big part in my life growing up. Lots of fun times, growing times, times visiting with family (you get to know people much better when you sleep under the same roof). However now that my grandparents who built / owned the cottage are gone, it feels like we're a system of planets revolving around a star that is no longer there. Shortly we will all go our own ways.
It's difficult since it's 4+ hours drive away from here. It's too long to just "pop up for a weekend", so that takes a large pool of the users away from the "frequent users" group. One cousin doesn't seem interested in the family or want anything to do with us. He does use the cottage, but doesn't come to the work weekends. My other cousins partners have their own family cottages. My folks aren't really interested in going. Pretty much no one can afford to run it by themselves. I don't want to have the upkeep on the cottage - I can barely keep our own house maintained. (Please don't ask Laura how many years some of the items on the "honey do" list have been there.)
I think that the doom of the cottage is already decided. Just no one wants to acknowledge it or discuss it. I think that something will break down, mostly like after a funeral, it will be put up for sale and exit the family.
This makes me sad. This means that I won't really see my cousins anymore, have those family weekends, share special events like thanksgiving. But this is what I see coming.
The worst part about it? I think that I'll be sad to lose the piece of wall by the bathroom which marked everyone's height as we grew up. The piece of freaking wall board is what I'm stressing about.
We shall see. Maybe the cottage will be improved. Changed. Maybe revenue generated by renting it out. I don't know. Every holiday seems like one step closer to a cliff.
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