As an adult, many concepts that once seemed too elusive to relate to have become the bits and pieces that make up my daily life. Love is no longer an unchanged paradise that I once dreamed of; money is no longer the ultimate key to access the secret room of a happy heart that I once considered it to be; the role of friend is no longer occupied by the same people that I once thought to be permanent fixtures in my life; and family estrangement is no longer a strange experience, only reserved for and lived by outcasts, who spew out obscenities, unapologetically, while walking down the public streets.
Family estrangement can happen at any age, at any time, at any place, and to anyone. Its root causes are like seeds planted in the silence of the dark night, oftentimes, without the immediate notice of the planters, until they have been germinating, below the surface of the skin, in the core of the psychic, to a point, where culmination, irruption, and explosion of all the hidden emotions are just a matter of time, so ferociously that the impact damages the conventional cliché and the perception of a seemingly harmonious, tight-kit relationship.
A seemingly harmonious, tight-knit relationship is built on and solidified, continuously, by mutual communication and understanding. Family estrangement is triggered by, on a continuous basis, miscommunication, and misunderstanding, both of which are found exactly on the opposite end of the spectrum. You may wonder, what then causes this drastic pendulum swing? Speaking from my personal experiences, I would say that distance, time, self-pride, parental authorities, limited amount of knowledge of the world at large, and loads and loads of other factors that engender the dissolution of a loving relationship.