Let Go

Back to my regular posting. I am back and refreshed. I came back home with a cold or something which led my mom to give me medicine, which then led to me missing Grey's Anatomy because I fell asleep. Damn.

Anyway.

vacation was actually nice. My aunt, cousin, and baby cousin met us the day after we were at our grandmothers house. For me it is always frightening to meet up with relatives. I some how think that we will all have nothing to say to each other and it will be an awkward time. Of course that wasn't the case. Morgan and Jolly Green Giant(which is now what I will refer to my cousin as because at 15 years old he is almost 6'1) totally talked to each other as if time had never passed. Everyone else( Mom, aunt, grandma) surrounded the baby, while I of course made sure things didn't fall apart.

I don't think it's my natural reaction to be in charge of things. But apparently everyone else thinks it is. They relied on me so much to do things, I became irritated by it. I also wanted to do the bonding and sharing of stories or even just talking about stupid things. But I was always, driving to McDonald's, or making cookies, or finding something someone lost. I was only irritated for about 2 hours, which was when I decided to hide in the backyard, but was soon called back in by my grandmothers screeching my name for assistance.

After that I was resigned to being the responsible one. Though I hated , and often rebelled the title.

We did the usual things. Went downtown. Ate at a restaurant. Watched movies at the house. For me it's just those subtle moments that make it all worth it. It was just comforting to be with the people I grew up with.

Maybe home is really about the people. I guess I grew up thinking home was about the place I grew up in, but really it's about the people I grew up around. They shape and alter our lives. They altered mine. It just felt good to be there with the people who I contribute so much of my childhood happiness to.

As mentioned briefly yesterday, I also saw the cracks in the foundation of my childhood that may cause most of my insecurities today.

My grandmother was never one of those "Give me a hug" people. My mom says she has always been like that, unable to show any real sort of affection. From what I remember as a child was that she cooked meals and was around when we were, but I've never really had a conversation with her.

My grandma has 4 children. 3 girls and 1 boy. My Uncle is the oldest and the favorite. We all know it. He also has those two evil daughters, who my grandmother thinks can do no wrong. But we all know that they are selfish, conceited, and snobby.

The rest of us pretty much don't live up to par to his family. My grandmother never says it but she has a way of talking about our father like "the hippie my mom married". Jolly Green Giant is tall and clumsy and grandma's critical words come a crushing blows. The Baby's dad got it the worst. My grandma clearly doesn't like him, and made a point of telling my aunt that over and over and over again.

Mid vacation my grandma made Jolly Green Giant and Morgan spray paint these old patio furniture that she had for at least 20 years. While they were doing that and I was supervising(hey baked cookies) my grandma,mom, aunt, baby,uncle, and uncle's girlfriend were sitting on the porch. Now Morgan and Giant have never sprayed anything that probably wasn't a wall.

But you should have seen them back there sweating and wearing these funny looking gloves wondering what the hell to do, and getting paint on themselves accidentally.She took this as them being lazy, and went on to call them "lazy son of a bitches" in front of the rest of the family while we were in the back.

My mom went off. I guess she had enough of grandma bashing us behind our backs, and says she just started yelling at her and reminding her that we are her grandchildren; not strangers. She's getting a huge mothers day present, just for defending us.

I see it in all of our faces. This need to be accepted and be worth something. Sure my childhood was great,but as a kid you are (I was anyway) always happy. It's like you are the star of the play, but you don't have any idea what is going on backstage as you are performing.

I realized that for me personally doing all those errands and helping the family out so much, I only got frustrated when my hard work wasn't appreciated. And then with my grandmother being so rude to Morg and Giant when they helped her out, I reflected on the fact that the tears that I have shed over friends were all caused from my not feeling appreciated or wanted by them.

I want so badly to be wanted that I get frustrated and sad and angry the moment I feel that I am sitting on the sidelines from people. The moment I feel like I don't matter, I disconnect. And I guess it stems from that repressed feeling of my youth of feeling unappreciated and ignored by the adults around me.

I have some fixing up of the cracks in the foundation, they are causing my house that I am building to crumble.

Time to go read some books. I think I got only one trashy one; I think it's about some secret agents or something. Who doesn't love that.

The cats have been following me around the whole day, so some reading in bed with two cats at my feet will just have to do.