Release

I am guilty of holding onto a grudge that has no place in my life anymore.  I have been hurt and mad at family, and I've allowed it to fester inside of me instead of just releasing my feelings and being done with it all.  I'm having a hard time putting the first steps into motion on how to approach the situation.  How do I bring up an old issue without causing new ones?  Why do I even care so much?  The one way I know how to relieve this aching is to just write about it.  Eventually, some of this may be what I say to them if I ever get a chance.

I've written about family before, and I feel like this is just an extension to that post.  It is easy to want to fix our family drama, but actually doing it is very complicated.  You think that just because you are a family then they will love you, include you, and hear your feelings.  Wrong.  I now understand that there are politics to family also.  Sometimes you get caught in the crossfire of bullshit that doesn't have anything to do with you, even if you are trying to be neutral.  Being neutral usually gets you nowhere but outcast quickly.  I can literally talk to someone in my family, and that is deemed as taking a side in a fight I had no part of, or knew was occurring.  Immaturity at its finest, but that's here nor there at the moment.

Getting married and becoming a parent were huge eye-openers.  I learned how important my life and my family are to other people.  I saw who was really there and who didn't really want to be.  I could tell the difference easily.  There were those that were active participants in our lives regularly, and then there were those that only saw us once a year.  This made me feel like I wasn't trying hard enough to be in their lives either.  I know life gets busy, and we all have things we need to accomplish.  Sometimes it is hard to be there for each other, especially when you have as large a family as mine.  I gave the benefit of the doubt and kept trying to include people that I thought would want to be there.  Then there came a dose of reality.  Some of those people really do not care, and they aren't afraid of showing it.  I can recognize tension for what it is.  I've been called a lot of things, but dense isn't one of them.  If you don't like me, then I am well aware of it; you can't bullshit a bullshitter.

Some of the family that I looked up to as a child were not anywhere near as close to me as I had thought they would be and were non-existent in my daughter's life.  They didn't call to invite us to things anymore.  If they did, it was simply a formality.  It was clear we weren't really welcome.  I thought that I could ignore the insults of not being invited to certain things, but then I realized it hurt a lot more than I thought.  Why?  Why do I even care?  They clearly do not miss me or my family, so I should just let it go.  Yet I am still overwhelmed with how sad all of it made me feel.  Maybe they would notice and understand if I started excluding them from my life?  Then I realized how ridiculous I was being.  They would never notice I was gone since I had already been removed.  Acting like them only made it worse.  Now they had definitive "reason" to treat me like shit.  The only time it was obvious that there was a problem was at family functions neither of us were in control of.  We must sit in the same room, pretend we don't know each other, and heaven forbid we make eye contact because then we must make nice for everyone else's benefit.  I don't like being uncomfortable or fake.  I think this is why this whole thing is such an issue for me.

My first choice would be to fix it.  I love my family or this obviously wouldn't bother me this way.  I still have many fond memories of my childhood and how they used to be towards me.  If there were a conversation and a solution, I would be happy, even if that meant we went our separate ways.  The second option is to stop the antics.  We're adults and should act as such.  I will not sit next to you and be quiet while you talk to everyone else but me.  I will not allow my daughter to be treated less than everyone else at the table because of your petty shit.  We deserve better than that.  Being strangers is fine by me.  They could avoid making things awkward for everyone around us by not sitting in my immediate vicinity, then trying to desperately avoid me.  You don't like me anymore, fine, move along.

I know I am not guiltless either.  I fully accept that I have played the game and reacted childish.  I am also the younger party to all of it.  If I truly am wrong, I see no reason they couldn't call me out on it as my elder.  They never had a problem correcting me as a child.  I always want to be open to hearing someone's feelings and even apologizing for things I clearly wasn't right on.  Just because I'm a bitch, doesn't mean I lack decency.  If the relationship is open and built on love, there shouldn't be any reason to be uncomfortable doing that.  Yet that is another reason I don't think I will ever have a chance to mend things.  I don't think if I started a conversation that it would even be acknowledged.  I am willing to try, but it is disheartening nonetheless.  Why did the fallout get so far along that we can't talk?  I guess only time will tell if things can get better before they get worse.

Lessons Learned: 

If you aren't treated the way you deserve, then you are allowed to walk away.  Respecting yourself does not mean you are disrespecting your elders.

Family doesn't automatically mean you will like each other.  In fact, I think it is mostly the opposite unless you work at it just like any other relationship.

Reasoning with those that are usually not open to accepting fault, will not work.  Accept the failure of that relationship.

The things that are said about you are irrelevant if they are not said to you.  Let that shit go.

There are people that love you and want to be a part of your life.  Eventually, you will notice who and what are a priority.  Love those people with all that you have and always put them first.   Your energy and efforts should always be put towards them.