Family Part 2
Travels - Queen of Trades; Travel and Photography
2017-06-11 07:30 by Sarah Denninger
in Life Stories , 76 references Ignore this thread
Family Part 2
 

STOP! If you havent read pt 1 of  my family post then go back and read yesterdays post first! Thanks ya'll

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Theres one thing I didn't talk about in my first post. Mainly because I felt like in a weird way they needed their own post to talk about them. This is in no way meant to bash them but it is to talk about my feelings towards this particular side of my "family". In my mind I don't think they realize our perspective of how we think of them and sometimes it takes an emotional toll on the mind. I love them very dearly but, we are all adults and the truth is to be revealed at some point.

So with my family being so small there is a small addition to the family. When I was in elementary school my dad dated someone who had two kids. A brother and a sister. The brother was older and the sister was younger. Quickly we started to connect and we got along real well. For the first time I had someone to call siblings. They treated me like their younger sister and it was such a wonderful time. I learned to play video games from my brother and my sister taught me about animals and how adorable they were. Everything seemed well and we all were happy. I mean really who can complain with gaining "siblings" in a small family and ones that you can get along with. It was like winning the lottery in my mind. Perfection at its finest.

Then it happened. Their mother tried to be "my mother" and started to get out of control with trying to "raise me" and not to long after an argument her and I had over using the waffle maker, it became clear that the two of them dating (her and my Father) was not going to work out. So they split up. In this time my Brother and Father had formed a connection and from then on, he started to come by to see us whenever he could. Every time he would hang out with my father and they would endlessly talk about cars and how to fix them up or make them better than they were. Sometimes they would talk about guns and political things going on in the world. Things I had no interest in what's so ever.  I felt like the oddball every time my brother or sister would come visit. We tried to make it work but, there's only so much you can do at a time. Then, out of nowhere someone was added to the equation. A girl. A girl my brother was madly in love with.

For a while they dated and everything seemed to be going ok. He was happy and I remember always hearing about her. She seemed nice and I could tell that he was head over heels about her. Every Time He would visit it was always something else to talk about when it came to her and I was genuinely happy for him. Well I was.  I remember when they broke up for a little while. She had told him that Jesus had given her a sign and so they broke up. Not too long after that my brother came down to visit and that time he brought a friend of his with him. For the majority of the time he was there, he was devastated. His friend told us one night that my brother was at the beach sulking about his girlfriend. He then later mentioned that he had been for there two hours already and was still there. The break up had broken him somehow. After a few days my brother took me out for ice cream and a movie and when we were done we went to the beach and watched the waves. I remember him asking me if I thought he was attractive. I was caught back by the question and answered as honestly as I could. I really didn't think it mattered and thought it was odd of him to bring it up. I tried what I could to make him happy again but I just wasn't enough of a distraction.

Some time later they got back together and the next time they visited, I met her for the first time.It was a little nerve wracking and I was pretty judgy when we met. After all she had practically had broken my brother.Even now my feelings towards that day is difficult to describe. I had a very strong connection to my siblings and for one of them to be as broken up as he was, well it lingers in my head and i'm sure it will for the rest of my life. As we got to getting used to her presence whenever my brother would visit I quickly grew in the discomfort and dislike radar. She took forever to get ready, sometimes taking an hour to shower. Every time everyone else was ready to go she was still doing the whole "five more minutes" that turned into half an hour. Everything had to be perfect. It was almost like we were in a TV show of sorts and it quickly became irritating. I was not a fan and the more she tried to make a good impression with me, the further I became uninterested. My brain was whirling a thousand miles per hour every time we saw each other and each time it was like walking in a pile of eggshells. You just could avoid stepping on them no matter how hard you tried and I really did try. I wanted so bad to like her and to be friendly. I wanted to have things be different but my father and I continued to be on the sideline. I saw it but, the whole situation didn't click just yet. 

Years went by and I finally noticed what was happening before my eyes. My father always ended up paying for the meals, we would offer them housing but they used the excuse of "Well my mother gets upset when we stay here, plus my sister is at my moms" and off they would go after a diner and movie or just a quick stop. As I witnessed more and more of this I started to see what their "definition" of family was. Honestly I feel like family should communicate when disasters occur or when something's wrong but time and time again we have been shown that we are usually one of the last to know about what happens. Were like a side street. Only used every once in awhile and when it is used, its on full turbo to get over it quickly. I will say that I do love them but I do think that the definition we all use of family is very loose and had taken a new form for us. It happens in some families and it's sometimes noticed by someone but nobody really thinks about it. I've been thinking about it for years it just wasnt until now that, I finally have a way of talking about it. 

I love them. I really do. They are close to my heart but would I call what we have family? No, I wouldn't. I'm happy that they are doing so great and my brother is even married and has a child now, but, I do think that the cycle will continue. My feelings on us being a family more than likely won't change. They have a new growing family and in the end all I care about if that they are happy with their lives. I just wish that things were different.

Maybe in the future it will be.

 

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User Info Family Part 2 in forum [Blog]
Naomi
Posts: 12
Incept: 2017-05-27

Dallas Texas
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What would I have said if a girl friend or worse, a teen age boy, had asked me if I thought they are attractive?

First no a single person in my entire life has ever asked me that question. Not my (half)brother, not my cousins, none of my friends at school or later, none of my coworkers who more often than not were also my friends. I am sure I never asked that to anyone, except once to my boyfriend, in grad school. But that was more a curiosity question, after having noticed that the guys at lunch time, as they sat outside, were having fun "grading" girls passing by (so in fact I did not use the word attractive exactly). And I guess if there is a case where if you cared about the answer you would mostly read between the lines, that would be it.

So why did no one around me ever asked that question? probably because they thought they were, or most likely because it did not come to mind for them because I was their friend and so they just knew I found them attractive each in their own way, in their eyes, their minds, their smiles. Sure some of them were quite beautiful, but that is really besides the point.

There may be something to the meaning of attractive though. For example I am very attractive to dogs. I have been all my life. There is a spontaneous connection, some of my friends' dogs even know my name, their owners stating that the dog does not do that with anyone else (and no, I do not feed them anything). I think they just sense how I love animals.

Perhaps your brother just needed to feel you were there for him, on his side unconditionally. That he was fun and interesting and that there was nowhere else you would rather be.
Naomi
Posts: 12
Incept: 2017-05-27

Dallas Texas
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About fusing households. My only experience is the summer vacations at my uncle's house where between 12 and sometimes 20 people shared their lives over the 3 summer months. They were my father's nieces and nephews and their kids, so at least 3 families or more at times.
Rules were never spoken, but basically we all tried to leave any space a little better than we found it, and shared all the tasks. Clearly common rules had to apply to all the kids. I don't know how much the adults discussed it, but kids were just assuming it went without saying and we sort of tuned our behavior on each other.
The house was the last on a dead end street on a hill. Further up was a wild area where Mediterranean herbs grew alongside bushes full of blueberries. I remember most the smell of the herbs in the sea breeze those summer evenings.. All the neighborhood kids would play together, invading the gardens at one house or another, welcome "most" of the time. I was coming from a big city and this permanent outdoor fun seemed quite wild to me. But I soon realized that someone in the group would always call a limit to the creative fun before an adult had to get involved. We were creating our own little society. All parents had their own individual rules of course, but seemed to adapt them to the extended community. It was not uncommon for my cousins to disappear in the morning and not resurface until almost dark, except to come and grab some grapes and a piece of bread in the middle of the day, always refusing to sit down to eat a regular meal, too much fun would be missed I guess. None of the kids were over 12. Clearly these were not the rules the rest of the year for most any of them. But it worked at that place and that time. And it was go with the flow for everybody.

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