New Leaf

As of this week I'm making an effort (yes I do that sometimes) to try to talk to my mother. So far so good. Normally our short conversations follow with something I did wrong. Then I have to defend myself. Finally her and I screaming at each other with obscene language til one of use slams a door shut. All the while my dad sits aside and analyzes the situation of which one of us will be the first to run straight to him for support. In any 'normal' situation (when it comes to my mother) my dad will usually side with me.

My mom has had past issues with not just me, but the whole family. The current relationship status between my brothers and her is pretty much void. They don't want anything to do with her and she thinks their the spawn of everything that's evil. She can't understand how I could possibly forgive them for what bad they have caused me. I'll admit, they tortured me, made fun of me, alienated me, and have given me every reason to do the same as my mother. But the kind of person that I am today (having a strong personality like my dad) forgives.

I may be 'talking' to her, but that doesn't mean that everything is alright between us. She's still very jealous of my relationship with my dad and can't not get into a fight without blaming someone. my dad's relationship is probably the most positive one I have with anyone out of my family. My dad gets upset with me sometimes, but we usually like to talk things out and just not worry about the small stuff. I think that's how I've began to establish a decent coexistence with my brothers. I try to not let their issues get to me and eventually it all worked out (not to say that I still don't want to strangle them on occasion).

I don't understand how personalities in families don't already have some kind of positive connection that forces everyone to just 'get along' with each other. Yeah I think I've heard of families who get a long. They're rich, and all live on opposite sides of the continent, visiting one an other only on the holidays (yeah that's real normal).

So my theory is. . . we have dysfunctional families to force us to understand how our own families will turn out. Because of my bad relationship with my mom, I'm hoping that I'm going to have a strong relationship with my kids. Not to say that my family will turn out great from my shitty problems that I've learned to cope with my family. You tend to learn from the mistakes you and others around you make. I'm just glad my brothers, mom, and dad have made mistakes for me to learn from. Thanks family!