For my 50th blog entry - and truth be told I wasn't sure I'd get to 50 when I started this - I thought I'd revisit a topic that I touched on in a three part post way back when I started this blog. That topic is friends and family in relation to coming out.
I'm going to more or less assume that anybody reading this has *NOT* read those earlier posts; so for those few that might have there will be some extra explanations here - I do NOT intend on rehashing those old posts, rather I'll just be filling in enough to enable this to be a stand-alone post. If anybody wants something more thorough they're welcome to review those older entries.
Let's start with family. I've been more or less estranged from my immediate family for some time. As I said above I won't get into a lot of detail here; but for my father it's probably been a good 15 years and for my mother / sister / brother a good 5 years. To the best of my knowledge my Mother is still living with my sister and they are still "attached at the hip". My brother had a falling out with my Mother a bit before I did - maybe 6 years back - truthfully I don't even recall over what it's been long enough. As far as each of them in relation to my father, I'm not certain but I believe my brother and his family have had at least some contact with him but my Mother/Sister had not in a significant amount of time.
Starting with my father, as I said it's been a long time and for a lot of reasons. He's tried to rewrite history a bit which hasn't helped things. His view is that he put work in front of family to try and "take care of us". Yes I would concur he made work a priority which I do understand. However, to ignore the fact that he found time to bowl in leagues consistently, spend copious amounts of time at the bar, cheat on my mother, and for that matter be physically violent with my mother; that's leaving an awfully large part of the story out because it better fits his own narrative. There was time he could have given, but beer was a bigger priority than his children and that's his choice, but don't try and rewrite how things happened now that you're older and feeling your mortality a bit. If I - or even my brother - was playing football, he found time to show up at the games and live vicariously through me or my brother. When I bowled on the school team, he found time to do the same for that. But otherwise, the only "time" he seemed to find was to have one of us fetch him a beer on those rare occasions that he came home anything short of pass out drunk. I know I said I wasn't going to get into a lot of detail, but at least for him I'm not sure that I ever have so.... Since my transition there have been two family outings on "his side" that we were invited too and I agreed to attend (and did attend) and he conveniently bailed on the second one *after* finding out we were coming; the first one - well I *thought* I saw him there and I know he was committed to attend; so either he managed to avoid us which wouldn't have been hard or he didn't show up which is what he pulled for the second event. Considering his own brother, my favorite uncle, was the one hosting the events and is the one responsible for getting us there it amazes me that estranged or not that he wouldn't have at least been curious enough or whatever to have at least come up and said hello and met my wife. That was enough to reaffirm my decision to not associate with him going forward.
Moving on to my brother and his family - well this one hurts, a lot. I haven't really been close to him - perhaps ever - but at least the last 20+ years; however, his older daughter (middle of three children) was always special to me. Even though we fell out of touch for a while she tracked me down via Facebook a few years ago when they moved back to the area and we kept in touch - that is until I transitioned and I didn't feel comfortable about explaining that to someone's children much less my brothers. She was probably 14 then and perhaps I shouldn't have worried but I did. Well fast forward to about 9 months ago (so about 9-10 months into my transition). J and I were at a Wal-Mart, not the one we normally go to but still a close one and my brothers two oldest children, his son and the niece in question, recognized us. Soon my brother and his wife joined in - the third child was spending the night with a friend I think. Well we talked (and blocked an aisle) for about 30-40 minutes and it was really nice. Since the cat was out of the bag I accepted the friend invitations from my sister-in-law and my two nieces - they had sent them weeks earlier I guess based upon a Facebook suggestion. We kept in contact off and on for about two months and then suddenly nothing. We're still Facebook friends, but no messages back and forth, no real acknowledgement to any comments made on posts, nothing. At about the same time they all become suddenly friendly with our mother/sister again. I have to guess one had something to do with the other, which is frustrating as I can only speculate as to what it was. As I said above this one hurt. My niece finally messaged me the other day after a good 9 months and while I responded to her politely I really did nothing to continue on the conversation, etc. At this point I've moved on and really don't think I want to go down that road again which probably reflects poorly on me, but it's how I feel.
My Mother and Sister. Well I don't have much to say about them. They've been attached at the hip since my sister was born (she's a bit over 7 years younger than myself). To the point at times it was like my Mother had one child. I know many older siblings feel that way, but it was excessive even now looking back. In fact I sometimes wonder if it was because she was the "baby" or if it was that she was the "girl". I lean towards the latter as for a good 5 years my brother was the baby and he wasn't treated as she was. Neither here nor there; I will always "love" my sister as that's what you do - but she always was pretty much a spoiled, stuck-up little b*tch growing up and my Mother encouraged it. There's a long story to how we fell out; but that's better done elsewhere. Suffice it to say to the best of my knowledge they still live together in my sister's house. I've heard from my sister once in the last 4-5 years and that was when she wanted to borrow money. I offered her a portion of what she asked for and was declined and haven't heard from her again. I haven't heard from my Mother in the same amount of time. What gets me here is not so much my sister; but rather my Mother. Despite the reason(s) for the estrangement, she does know about my transition. It just amazes me that she doesn't want to reach out, if for no other reason to find out why she now has two daughters and one son.
Now that I've covered the "immediate family" I'll wrap this up. I'll have up Part 2 in the next few hours covering extended family and friends - the latter being the real point behind this two part entry.
- M
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