When I was young I used to love going home. After school or after school classes we used to have, I'd wait to go back home. Home was my happy place. I used to curl up in bed on dark, cold, rainy days and would read all day and my heart was pleased. When I worked for the newspaper I used to be called the "Home Bird", cause I'd never hang around to socialize with others at work but instead run home to be with home people. I loved home and everything and everyone in it. It was peaceful and happy place for the most part and I felt secure in it.
But I don't feel like that any longer. Perhaps because it's been over 10 years since I left home for good. Or perhaps because I have my own home now, which I feel similarly about. Or perhaps because I feel that the home that was once close to my heart does not feel like that anymore, including the people I once shared a life with in it. It pains my heart but at the same time I realize that those who I call mother, father, sister and brother have their own journeys and own lives and over the years the paths we each have taken have moved us in so many directions that it's no longer possible to even get close, not just physically but mentally as well. I used be connected to these people. But as much as much heart wants that I realize that it's not possible.
It's sad that when we grow up, we see that part of growing up is being able to assert oneself over others. It is sad that when we grow up, we lose the kindness and he openness we had as children. It's sad when growing up also means to some being so separated from one another as to make oneself look important or different. It's extremely sad when your own brothers and sisters, based on their own prejudices and insecurities or egos, allow walls to creep us in personal relationships.
Whatever it is, I really don't have answers but only speculations. I look at my own heart and I see great sense of disappointment and sadness over the happenings of the last 2-3 months. It feels like my dad's sickness brought out the worse in everyone and true reflection of who they are as individuals. If what I have experienced over the last 3 months is even close to the truth, then I am afraid I no longer have space in my life for them anymore. Just writing that finality of tone makes me sad. But I don't know what to do other than create some space and distance between me and my family members.
I do not understand their hostility towards me. Whether it is by intention or not, there is that I feel. From my parents I feel a great deal of expectations that they don't seem to have from the others. But when I do everything that I can possibly do, that is also not good enough or there is more to do to make things better. I am asked to live up to standard that they do not demand from my brother and sister. They cannot handle a rough word from me but puts up with redness from my brother and sister all the time. For them, my life is perfect and I am perfect, whereas for my brother and sister their lives need to be helped and cared for by them and by me. Why is that? I don't know but I feel the burden that I cannot handle anymore.
Talking to home is unpleasant. Talking to my brother and sister is unpleasant. I have done everything in my power to 'take it in from one ear and put it out the other' but it's come to that point that I no longer even want to take anything in. I feel like I need a break from them for a while. Perhaps it will be good for me and them. Sometimes we all need to find some space and quietness and I certainly need to feel that without the constant barrage of complaints and requests and demands from them.
Recently we were on a holiday and the day we landed we found that our bags were missing. On the same day my brother sends me a text asking me to call so he could go over a letter that has to do with his move. We are holidaying and in another country and without access to Wifi and with a large time difference. So I told him that our bags were lost and I cannot attend to his needs right now. Then after a day he writes again asking if I got the bags. To that I replied that if he's waiting for my call not to do so because of the difficulty in getting through but to send the letter in. He simply went quiet and never wrote back or even asked about the missing bags. When I got home I wrote telling him we were back and that we could talk. When I called him he simply sounded very disinterested in talking and the attitude was that there is nothing to talk about and was very dismissive of anything I had to say. Moreover, he never even bothered to ask about the holiday or if we even found our bags. I was very hurt and disappointed.
The fact that he is so selfish and cannot even care about someone else until his little life is perfect was very sad to me. Now if I tell him he probably will lecture on how one should not expect and why one should expect so much but forgetting his own level of expectations and his inability to let go of his own ego and selfishness for a moment to ask about anothers problems. It was the same with my sister. It was all about her sickness and difficulties but never how I might be having a hard time with my knees and back and shoulder, when I was doing the taking care of my father. Everyone seem to feel they have the worse and therefore do not have an ounce of time and hear to spare for another. So I am leaving them be.
I claim that I also don't have the time and heart for them. It's taken a toll on me and my mental well being so I will stop for a while at least. Let them sort out their miserable lives and let me get on with mine.
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