Feelings

Glorious, imperfect, messy, frightening, ugly feelings. I have a love-hate relationship with my feelings, but it's slowly moving more toward love as time goes on. Feelings were not allowed in my home as a child. Well, for the children anyway. The adults were not only allowed to HAVE feelings, but in addition to that, the feelings of the adults dictated the childrens' lives. For instance, if Mom was in a bad mood, it was perfectly fine to beat the tar out of the children. We didn't even need to be blamed for her bad mood...it was enough that she was IN a bad mood.

I've been fighting back a tremendous sadness for...well, my whole life. I tried ignoring the sadness...calling it something else...covering it up...changing its location...oh, I tried everything. It's caught up with me.

Here's the deal: my family (meaning those I share DNA with) do not love me. Or, if they do love me, they act it out in a really inappropriate way. I have some wonderful friends that I have referred to as my "chosen" family for many years. But it's just hitting me that, dammit, they are NOT my real family. I can call them whatever I want - they're never going to be related to me, and I am never going to be a true part of their family. It doesn't matter how you want to dress it up, true "family" are the people you share DNA with, and that's it. You don't get spares. You might think you have spares (like I did), but those spares aren't the same thing.

Some folks that I thought of as family just up and walked out without a backward glance. Now, with the family I share DNA with, even though I've walked out, we're always going to be connected. And if I were to walk back in their lives, the reception would be a whole lot different than if they were not related to me.

The point I'm trying to make in all these ramblings is that all my life, I've been trying to make myself feel better about my shitty family. I just realized, today in fact, that I don't HAVE to feel better about them. You know what? It sucks that the people who SHOULD love me don't. It sucks that the people who SHOULD support me don't. It sucks that the people who SHOULD accept me don't. And all the friends in the world, no matter how wonderful they are, can't make those crappy feelings go away.

So I'm going to be sad dammit. I'm going to allow myself to be sad, to feel all those feelings I should have felt as a kid when I was being thrown down the hall way and being told I wasn't worthy of my family. It doesn't matter how I dress those things up or try to ignore them...they happened, and they SUCKED!