It's the most wonderful time of the year
Dec. 11th, 2014 09:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glitch25As the holidays come around, I become keenly aware of things in my life. Things for which I'm grateful. The status of things.
One of the things that always comes around is the disposition of decisions I've made about my family.
You see, the holidays are often a time for gathering with family. Blood, chosen, and otherwise. A time to share, a time to love, and a time to enjoy or otherwise accept the ties of the relationships to those with whom we are related.
Over the years, and for various reasons, my ties to my blood family have come undone. As a part of my decisions to live a better life and to be true to myself, I've felt it necessary to back away from these relationships. Not just a case of not being accepted, but also very deliberate and abusive actions that prompted me to finally say no more and to push these things away from my life.
So during the holidays, I don't spend time with blood family (or any other time of the year), but because it is a time to do so, I often having feelings about the fact that I don't.
I think part of it is that I remember a more innocent time in my life when I was a child and less knowledgeable about the things going on around me, and I remember enjoying a lot of the holidays with family. I realize of course that not much was really different then.. I just wasn't capable of seeing the bad things at that time. But it does make me feel a sense of loss when I later began to see things differently and couldn't understand why it seemed so starkly different.
Over the course of my childhood, things became more overt and there was less pretense about the abusiveness and about the things that went on. I realized as I got older that I was given a gift of ignorance in my childhood. One that my younger sister didn't get. It is possible she had her moments of not knowing better, but by the time she came along, my parents made less effort to hide the problems, so I'm fairly confident that her childhood in that was different than mine.
Among my friends and chosen family, the ratio of good to not good family experiences still leans heavily to the not good, but it is also nice to see families that still make an effort and seem to want to appreciate their bonds.
Beyond my relationships, I don't foresee having kids of my own, and I'm happy to not have to pass on the legacy of luggage just on my own side, much less that of others.
As for my own blood that remains, in spite of the hope that we could somehow manage occasionally to respect and enjoy one another, I choose instead to call it a done deal and to let it die where it sits. It is a rough choice for me, and likely for them (though they do their own level of pushing away as well. This is hardly one-sided).
Instead I try to be thankful for my chosen family and for the relationships I've forged outside my blood family. I've had to learn to overcome the influences and experiences I've had, but in doing so (and continuing to do so), I've been able to give my chosen family the respect and honor that they deserve. I've found a place where we all can enjoy one another and boost each other up and do the things that families do.
It isn't all perfect all the time. We each work on it daily. But I appreciate being a part of something where we all care. We all want to be better and we all try and we mostly succeed.
For those of you with family issues, I hope that you can find or have found peace with it. It can be a rough thing to do, and it is something that I continue to struggle with. For those of you with the "seems to be better than average" families, I hope that what you have is healthy and meaningful, and I hope it helps boost you and give you reasons to live a good life and to continue to treat each other well.
One of the things that always comes around is the disposition of decisions I've made about my family.
You see, the holidays are often a time for gathering with family. Blood, chosen, and otherwise. A time to share, a time to love, and a time to enjoy or otherwise accept the ties of the relationships to those with whom we are related.
Over the years, and for various reasons, my ties to my blood family have come undone. As a part of my decisions to live a better life and to be true to myself, I've felt it necessary to back away from these relationships. Not just a case of not being accepted, but also very deliberate and abusive actions that prompted me to finally say no more and to push these things away from my life.
So during the holidays, I don't spend time with blood family (or any other time of the year), but because it is a time to do so, I often having feelings about the fact that I don't.
I think part of it is that I remember a more innocent time in my life when I was a child and less knowledgeable about the things going on around me, and I remember enjoying a lot of the holidays with family. I realize of course that not much was really different then.. I just wasn't capable of seeing the bad things at that time. But it does make me feel a sense of loss when I later began to see things differently and couldn't understand why it seemed so starkly different.
Over the course of my childhood, things became more overt and there was less pretense about the abusiveness and about the things that went on. I realized as I got older that I was given a gift of ignorance in my childhood. One that my younger sister didn't get. It is possible she had her moments of not knowing better, but by the time she came along, my parents made less effort to hide the problems, so I'm fairly confident that her childhood in that was different than mine.
Among my friends and chosen family, the ratio of good to not good family experiences still leans heavily to the not good, but it is also nice to see families that still make an effort and seem to want to appreciate their bonds.
Beyond my relationships, I don't foresee having kids of my own, and I'm happy to not have to pass on the legacy of luggage just on my own side, much less that of others.
As for my own blood that remains, in spite of the hope that we could somehow manage occasionally to respect and enjoy one another, I choose instead to call it a done deal and to let it die where it sits. It is a rough choice for me, and likely for them (though they do their own level of pushing away as well. This is hardly one-sided).
Instead I try to be thankful for my chosen family and for the relationships I've forged outside my blood family. I've had to learn to overcome the influences and experiences I've had, but in doing so (and continuing to do so), I've been able to give my chosen family the respect and honor that they deserve. I've found a place where we all can enjoy one another and boost each other up and do the things that families do.
It isn't all perfect all the time. We each work on it daily. But I appreciate being a part of something where we all care. We all want to be better and we all try and we mostly succeed.
For those of you with family issues, I hope that you can find or have found peace with it. It can be a rough thing to do, and it is something that I continue to struggle with. For those of you with the "seems to be better than average" families, I hope that what you have is healthy and meaningful, and I hope it helps boost you and give you reasons to live a good life and to continue to treat each other well.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-11 07:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-11 07:57 pm (UTC)Yes, very much this.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-11 08:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-11 11:09 pm (UTC)