am I the twisted sister

Sisters!

It’s sort of a sore subject for me.

Family!

An even harder one for me.

My whole family lives within 30 minutes of me, yet I feel like they might as well live on the moon. That is not true for all of my family, just the vast majority.

This is a post unlike any I’ve even written. I don’t talk much about my family except for my tripod.  I do not spend a lot of time with most of my family. My mom is a pretty awesome grandmom to Q and one of my little sisters and I talk or text a few times a week.

So this post is going to be rambling and all over the place but I need to get this out of my head. I need to feel. I need to write what I am feeling.

Let’s back up, there really is information needed to make sense.

My parents divorced when I was 5 and H was 2. My dad remarried C2 shortly after. Stepmom is C2 because my dad married two women with the same name.  Dad and C2 had their own children, the first was born when I was 9. They had two girls and 1 boy – La, Li, and M. M was born when I was 18 and a new high school graduate. If you are keeping track, I am the oldest of 5 – there are 4 of us girls and the baby boy.

I spent most of life bouncing between houses. Weekends with my dad and weeks with my mom. Holidays were spread out and I generally spent time with both families on the holidays.  At my mom’s family there was always stress and drama…someone is always hating on someone else on that side of my family. At my dad’s family I was always her daughter. I have always looked just like my mother and my dad’s family never failed to point that out. I always felt like I would never be more than her daughter.

There was time, at a Christmas Eve dinner where my dad said something to my stepmom and she turned around and said, “they’re not my daughters.”

When Q was about 9 months old, I decided to walk away from an abusive, controlling relationship. I was living in Florida at the time and the only person I knew to call for help was my dad. He flew from NJ and picked me and my baby up and brought us home. Part of the reason I stayed in that relationship so long was that I thought no one would help me. I was unworthy and undeserving of my family. I truly thought there was no way my family wanted me anymore. My dad surprised me. I called and he was on the next flight to rescue me.

I came home to a home that was not really mine. My dad and C2 accepted me and my Q but really that did not last long. It did not take long to realize my stepmom hated me. It was about a month before I felt like a kid …I lived with C2 and my dad for a little shy of two years (my 7th & 8th grade years) and I never felt truly welcome. I always felt like I (and my sister, H) were the second class citizens to her children. They always came first. I started to feel like Q and I were in the way, so I moved on.

This weekend I had all those old feelings again.

You see little sister, La is getting married in September and I am a bridesmaid. Little sister, Li, is also a bridesmaid. La  had Q sleep over on Friday night and then on Saturday we were all meeting at a dress shop. La took Q to my dad’s house so she could visit her Uncle M, my youngest sibling. I was a bit concerned because we haven’t seen my dad in a while. In fact, my dad hasn’t bothered to remember Q on her birthday the last two years. I can deal with him forgetting me but not my kid.

Anyway, Li still lives at home with my dad and C2 with her daughter. Li is in the exact same situation I was in 10 years ago. 21, a single mom, a loser for a baby daddy.  But Li has been welcome to stay at home and raise her daughter and go to college and hardly work. I know it shouldn’t bother me, but everything about Li dredges up emotions and feelings that I don’t entirely understand.

I thought I was over all this shit.

I am 33 years old.

It shouldn’t bother me!

But it does!!

Li is living the life I was not allowed. I was treated like a leper for having a baby so young, for not getting married, for purposely choosing to raise my baby alone. I was made to feel terrible. Yet Li has that same life and it’s ok. I went to college, but I had to work full time to raise my daughter. I struggled for everything I have. I fight every day to make life good for my daughter. But Li has the life I had, but wasn’t allowed to keep. And since she had her daughter, my daughter has essentially been forgotten.

And while living at home, and using state medical insurance, Li had gastric bypass. She was 21 years old and she has never tried to eat right and exercise. The state changed requirements so there was no counseling or waiting period. Again, this shouldn’t bother me but it does. Again, I fight and struggle and its like it was just handed to her.  I know the WL surgery is not easy, but this is my ramble.

As I was ready to head out to meet my sisters and my daughter and niece at a dress shop, I had a mini melt down.

I love my sister and I do not blame her or hate her, she just brings up stuff. She makes me feel stuff. She makes me feel stuff I didn’t even know still bothered me.

But it does bother me.

How can my dad forget his first born? How can he ignore his first granddaughter?

How dare he and his wife?

Damn, why do I still cry?!?