Family
Okay, maybe I won't!!! I just can't seem to turn my brain off.
I was thinking about how crappy Thanksgiving is every year. I have bigger things to stress about, but that's the icing on the cake, you know?
My mother in law wants to fly us to Seattle for Christmas. I would really really really like to go, but I feel bad having her put out THAT much money to see us. We could never afford to pay for it ourselves, especially with me not working now. We haven't been up there for a year and a half now, and last time we went it was for my father in law's funeral, not exactly a celebratory time, if you know what I mean.
The thing is, I just want to be with family. I hear people bitch about how their family has drama, blah blah blah, and I just wanna knock them upside the head. Every family has drama. EVERY ONE. Hell you take any group of people and you have them be close for an extended period of time, some drama is bound to develop, right? So why should family be any different?
Yeah, I have a family. I have the drug addict mom who is homeless somewhere. Last I heard she is living out of her van with her abusive (also drug addicted) ex-husband, and she claims to like it that way. I have no way to find her or contact her, as her van has no phone. Of course, my phone number has been the same since 2000, but she never has the time, even though she hasn't had a job in ages, to call me. I guess her only daughter isn't that important. Whatever, I'm not bitter, hahaha!
I think it's better sometimes though. When she is around, she criticizes everything I do, while she lies about what she does. She makes fun of me, saying that I am "too white" to be her daughter, why do I want to pay that much money on just rent (my rent is VERY reasonable, I think!), why do I dress like a "white girl", etc. Sorry mom, just because I grew up in the ghetto and I am Mexican doesn't mean I have to have long, permed hair down my back and sport flannels and too much dark lipstick. Just because I shop at Old Navy instead of K-Momo doesn't make me a failure to my whole race, I promise! Old Navy isn't even that high end!
Then there are the brothers. Youngest brother just got out of jail a month ago and he's already violated parole. Oops. I don't know how many times he's been in there, but he seems to like it I guess. He's rude and obnoxious and thinks the world owes him something. He takes what he wants and does what he wants and doesnt' seem to care about the consequences or who he may hurt. It doesn't seem to bother him that his son and his daughter don't have a daddy around to take care of them or play with him.
The other brother used to be the same way, but then he met a girl, and she whooped his butt into shape. I am thankful to her for that! She came here illegally, but they are married now and going through the process of getting her documentation. She just had a baby on my last birthday. They live across town and have their own thing going on over there. It's like we're not even related, our lives are so far apart and different.
My extended family is in California, and they are mostly as dysfunctional as the family here that I never see.
So, for the time being, my husband's family is my family. I got very very lucky. I have a great mother in law, and sister in law, and father in law. They are all kind and good natured and fun to be around. The only thing I could possibly say negatively about them is that they are all so darn far! Two in Seattle and one in D.C!
This makes holidays really hard for me. There is no one here we can spend Thanksgiving with. All of our friends have their own families to get together with. Sometimes, one will take pity on us and invite us over. It's always weird though, to feel like an outsider and to know that you don't belong.
Aw crap, now I am crying and feeling sorry for myself, after I was just congratulating myself in my last post on how I wasn't doing that.
Anyway, it's easy to just say that my husband and I will just be our own family and have our own traditions, but that's hard, you know, when it's just the two of us. A Thanksgiving chicken just isn't the same.
So then you take all the sorriness of our sad Thanksgiving existence and you add to that Christmas less than a month away! We're back in the same boat!
We went to Seattle one year for Christmas, and I loved it. I got to see what it was like for other people. I got to see what a real family gathering was like, and it made me cry, because it's so unfair that my mom took that from us. I know life is unfair, but dammit, it still hurts. That was the last Christmas before my husband proposed to me and we got married, and I still felt like the outsider, I'm always the outsider.
I just want to belong.
I was thinking about how crappy Thanksgiving is every year. I have bigger things to stress about, but that's the icing on the cake, you know?
My mother in law wants to fly us to Seattle for Christmas. I would really really really like to go, but I feel bad having her put out THAT much money to see us. We could never afford to pay for it ourselves, especially with me not working now. We haven't been up there for a year and a half now, and last time we went it was for my father in law's funeral, not exactly a celebratory time, if you know what I mean.
The thing is, I just want to be with family. I hear people bitch about how their family has drama, blah blah blah, and I just wanna knock them upside the head. Every family has drama. EVERY ONE. Hell you take any group of people and you have them be close for an extended period of time, some drama is bound to develop, right? So why should family be any different?
Yeah, I have a family. I have the drug addict mom who is homeless somewhere. Last I heard she is living out of her van with her abusive (also drug addicted) ex-husband, and she claims to like it that way. I have no way to find her or contact her, as her van has no phone. Of course, my phone number has been the same since 2000, but she never has the time, even though she hasn't had a job in ages, to call me. I guess her only daughter isn't that important. Whatever, I'm not bitter, hahaha!
I think it's better sometimes though. When she is around, she criticizes everything I do, while she lies about what she does. She makes fun of me, saying that I am "too white" to be her daughter, why do I want to pay that much money on just rent (my rent is VERY reasonable, I think!), why do I dress like a "white girl", etc. Sorry mom, just because I grew up in the ghetto and I am Mexican doesn't mean I have to have long, permed hair down my back and sport flannels and too much dark lipstick. Just because I shop at Old Navy instead of K-Momo doesn't make me a failure to my whole race, I promise! Old Navy isn't even that high end!
Then there are the brothers. Youngest brother just got out of jail a month ago and he's already violated parole. Oops. I don't know how many times he's been in there, but he seems to like it I guess. He's rude and obnoxious and thinks the world owes him something. He takes what he wants and does what he wants and doesnt' seem to care about the consequences or who he may hurt. It doesn't seem to bother him that his son and his daughter don't have a daddy around to take care of them or play with him.
The other brother used to be the same way, but then he met a girl, and she whooped his butt into shape. I am thankful to her for that! She came here illegally, but they are married now and going through the process of getting her documentation. She just had a baby on my last birthday. They live across town and have their own thing going on over there. It's like we're not even related, our lives are so far apart and different.
My extended family is in California, and they are mostly as dysfunctional as the family here that I never see.
So, for the time being, my husband's family is my family. I got very very lucky. I have a great mother in law, and sister in law, and father in law. They are all kind and good natured and fun to be around. The only thing I could possibly say negatively about them is that they are all so darn far! Two in Seattle and one in D.C!
This makes holidays really hard for me. There is no one here we can spend Thanksgiving with. All of our friends have their own families to get together with. Sometimes, one will take pity on us and invite us over. It's always weird though, to feel like an outsider and to know that you don't belong.
Aw crap, now I am crying and feeling sorry for myself, after I was just congratulating myself in my last post on how I wasn't doing that.
Anyway, it's easy to just say that my husband and I will just be our own family and have our own traditions, but that's hard, you know, when it's just the two of us. A Thanksgiving chicken just isn't the same.
So then you take all the sorriness of our sad Thanksgiving existence and you add to that Christmas less than a month away! We're back in the same boat!
We went to Seattle one year for Christmas, and I loved it. I got to see what it was like for other people. I got to see what a real family gathering was like, and it made me cry, because it's so unfair that my mom took that from us. I know life is unfair, but dammit, it still hurts. That was the last Christmas before my husband proposed to me and we got married, and I still felt like the outsider, I'm always the outsider.
I just want to belong.
Miss M told you so @ 5:18 AM
1 Comments:
Just wanted to send you a big hug!! Hang in there.
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