Moody Meow

How do you feel about your family? Not just sections of them, but all of them. Do they make you feel loved? Are they there for you? Do they celebrate your accomplishments? Are you in love with the idea of family more than the people themselves? Do they live up to your expectations? Do they know how to listen?

There is a conversation that won’t happen because I don’t have the mental fortitude to deal with it. But I want to ask my family these things (this does not include D). I try to look at things from beyond my madness and really understand where I am in relation to those that I love. I’ve lost one family already. I’ve not seen my father since I was a child, and I haven’t spoken to him since I was 17. And I am watching the rest of my family slip away into their own preoccupations and I find I am powerless to stop it. I don’t know what to say because I’ll be regarded as hysterical.

My birthday is a prime example. Understand that my woes are never about money, they are about thoughtfulness and generosity of time. Instead of doing something new and novel for me for my birthday (it is, after all, my 30th) my parents are just going to forgive my debt to them. On one hand I am grateful-ish. But more of it is a return for the cash I paid out for the rental car for my mother’s birthday. The rest of the money I owe for a laptop is forgiven. That’s the birthday present. I felt like they couldn’t even be bothered to think of something nice.

My stepfather also said something pretty disturbing while we were out there. He told us not to come during their busy season because that was “money out of our pocket.”  Our visit for my mother’s birthday was the first out there in two years. The visit before that didn’t happen during their busy season either. He assumed we were there to ski. I was there to visit my family. That’s where the disconnect really made itself apparent. What’s fucking wierd is that when people came down for our wedding, they didn’t seem so insular and removed from me.
I am trying to work all of this out within myself, because part of me feels like an ungrateful heel.  On the other hand I know there’s been a change there, and while I own part of that difference, I don’t see myself being the reason.

Okay… I feel better now that I’ve gotten that out. I guess I’m having trust issues. If you can’t trust your family to be there, then who do you trust?