Reverb12 Day Fourteen: Family Role

tyunglebower ♦ December 14, 2012 ♦ Leave a comment

Did your role in the family shift or change over the past year?  How?  Why?

In a sense. I do think that in many ways my relationship to much of my tumultuous family has taken a step back or two in recent years. There are tiny branches of my family with whom I get along, but each year there seems to be something that happens which encourages me to take on a less active presence with the whole, and a more specific presence with said branches.

In many ways I never fit in with most aspects of my family. Growing up I was either judged, chastised or ignored by many members of it. Little respect was shown to me by several members of the family when I was a child, and it never really corrected itself as I entered adulthood. I used to love big family gatherings, when I suppose I wasn’t aware of just how factional we could be. (Or perhaps before we all become so factional.) But now, and in the last few years, I have not only accepted but at times embraced my position as the outsider.

I grew weary of trying to figure things out with every single person, or try to bring things together with everyone in a less depressing way. Now I just accept that my large family doesn’t get along in many ways, and I just cherry pick those who’s company I enjoy, and those I do not. Family is family, but I’ve decided not to try to pursue it as a whole anymore. If there is little understanding and little desire to understand who and what I am, so be it. Sad in a way, but less painful then trying to be a part of this Waltons type of situation that was probably never the case to begin with.

I have the certain siblings, and the certain children of the certain siblings that I enjoy the most, for better or worse, and who seem to enjoy me. That is sufficient these days.