Sometimes family can be a strange beast. No one knows how to lift you up or grind you into the dust better than your family. They know your strengths and your weaknesses. I have always had mixed feelings about my family. I am sure that is in part just due to my nature.
I trust people, often too much, and expect people to show the same trust and care that I try to show. I do not always succeed in showing how I feel about those around me accurately. Some rifts in my familial relationships are because of this. Some are because they just don't understand the background that I am from.
When thinking of my childhood I often think of our home as having two faces. The face that was put forward to the world and the one that hid behind it. I was fortunate not to be in an abusive home, but my home was not normal by any means. Mental illness and the struggle to function often shadowed my youth.
My sister and I had a rift between us for years because of two incidences that would not have happened in a normal home. We just talked out one of them in 2014. It was too hard for me to put into words before then. And low and behold my sister didn't realize she had hurt me. She was just trying to help me see what I was doing could hurt someone but, as a young child herself, she couldn't find the words that an adult would use to help. All of these years those words had haunted me. She has struck me to the core with two small sentences and for 20 plus years I heard them echo through my life. They made me doubt myself and every friendship I had and if I was good enough to be a part of it. It made me never fully invest in friendships and pull back instead of hold fast when I was in trouble. I can't blame her though, she was a child having to parent her sister who was only 3 years younger. She was struggling herself, trying as best as she could to shoulder some of the burden placed on us.
I have a relative who, though they have never out-right said anything to me, does not like me. I can feel it when I am near. They try to push past it, and I respect their efforts, but I can't help wonder what I did. I am afraid to ask in all honesty. I am afraid the answer will be something I can not move past. So, I just smile and pretend I don't feel that sick, slimey feeling in my gut. I will most likely never ask, I would rather love them and not know.
Much of my childhood through my early adukthood, I was drowning slowly, barely able to keep myself afloat long enough to get some air. I have friends who were there for me through the worst times. I am not sure they will ever know how much they saved me, how much they meant to me. I sure as heck never showed it. If I could tell them, I would apologize for pushing them away as often as I did. Sometimes I was barely keeping my head above water and I pushed them away rather than drag them down with me. I wish I could tell them thank you for holding my hand when I did reached out for one. In those times I needed someone desperately and didn't have the strength to keep going but those few moments of being able to seek shelter with you made it so I was able to find rest and peace for a little while. Thank you for waiting so long before you gave up on me. Thank you for the patience and the forgiveness. I am sorry I never told you. Maybe one day I will...
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