Family Frustrations

I come home from work and have an email from MomI "please call home. don't worry we're all fine, need to talk to you" by the time I call she's in bed (night shifter) and Daddy answers the phone. "oh, we just wanted to talk to you about Norfolk Arkansas. Your Mom & I want to rent a cabin and have a Mini Family reunion with you & Joe, Pebbles & Neapolitan, Raquel & Hunter. We think it'd be a great family gathering, we miss you girls so much....and the men too"

Notice how they didn't even MENTION SisterA, ArmyBro, Swift or BroB? MBro has already devastated my Parents by moving thier 3 girls back to Indiana. If you might remember they spent quite a few years in Africa not long after thier youngest daughter was born. And they always told mom & dad that they'd move to Arkansas when they were finished with the Missionary work. They lived in Arkansas for 2 years. They finished with thier missionary work and moved in with my parents until they found thier own house 6 months before I moved up here. So out of the 3 boys me and Swift are the closest. Use to be me & ArmyBro but not anymore since he ran off, got married and chose to make some of the decisions he's made...We're all very dissapointed in him, we are...

Those 4 have devastated the hearts of my parents. 5 of us kids aren't even biologically my fathers (me & Raquel are) but he has a huge heart and he's a great man and he hurts for my mom and it's making him very bitter towards the other kids. SisA & BroB aren't even MomI's biologically but she raised them since they were babies because thier mom WALKED OUT on them... So she met SisA & BroB's father, raised them and had Pebbles & AB with him. She'd already had MBro from a previous marriage.

Back to the conversation: My dad...my dad is hilarious. He said "we'll get a 4 bedroom cabin, etc blah" and when he's done I ask him "so I guess that means Raquel & I are sleeping in one room while Joe & Hunter sleep in another?" and he claims Joe and I will be married by next fall. I tried to tell him otherwise... We had a lengthy discussion... I think he's upset that Joe and I are living in unweddedness.

My dad has been a minister/preacher whateveryouwannacallit for 10 years now. Granted, my entire adult life. My childhood was not filled with church or worship, etc all. I don't remember going to sunday school except once but I'm not sure how old I was and that's where those memories stop. It became rituals of Sunday Football with Pizza, Popcorn and junk food. Saturday nights were filled with Music while he and his band practiced in our living room (my dad plays bass & guitar). I was a tomboyish child raised by a man who liked to drink alot....and smoke alot. (cigs people cigs nothing else, jeeze)

So I think my father is dissapointed that I'm "living in Sin" with another man. But Joe is only the 2nd man i've ever "lived in Sin" with. So it's not like I'm hopping from man to man and relationship to relationship. I just don't want to get married again. Not right now. I'd love to, I really do. I want to marry Joe. But I don't want to. I'm scared to. It's so much easier to just walk away if things don't go as planned instead of spending 9 months in a court room and waiting for a year to be "single" again... I guess that I'm just afraid. And I want to wait. I hope that he can understand that. I know he loves me anyways, no matter what I do. Or if Joe and I wait another 5 years to get married. He wants Grandbabies (his own biological grandbabies) and Raquel isn't having any anytime soon, she's still in College and is waiting. And I think he's afraid that I wont decide to have any until we're married. I don't have the heart to tell him we're trying to get pregnant because I don't want to put him or MomI through the emotional rollercoaster of trying and it not happening like before.

On the otherside of the Family... BioM's birthday was a few days ago. We sent her a card and I tried to call her. She hasn't called me back yet. Usually its me ignoring her calls and not vice versa. It all started when my AuntM was shot in the head at her wedding reception. You all remember that, right? Ofcourse you do. Well, One of my Other Aunts had called me up and told me the news, we thought it was a random act of violence. Everyone was saying that it was a random act of violence... Turns out we were wrong. Turns out that AuntM had it comming...Turns out alot of bad shit and there is going to be a huge trial with the possibility of AuntM going to jail for the rest of her life...Along with her new husband. So my FaveAunt tried to talk to BioM about the new developments about AuntM not being innocent in this, blahblah. And BioM freaked out on FaveAunt and out of her mouth spew forth a string of cuss words and bad things...

So BioM calls me up for my birthday or was it a little after my birthday? Anyways, she's going on and on about how FaveAunt is a lying bitch and spewing more obscenities. I told her frankly "look, FaveAunt is trying to tell you the truth. AuntM is not innocent she did these bads things *named them off* and told her that if she had issues with FaveAunt she needed to talk her and leave me out of it because if AuntM did these things she wasn't suppose to then she deserves what she gets"...Now don't get my wrong. I love my AuntM. She's only a few years older than me. We grew up together. Her and UncleD are the youngest siblings of BioM & FaveAunt. And it kills me that she did something that could land her in jail for a very long time...

So now BioM isn't speaking to me. She's off in her whole little world that everyone is against her, we all hate her and she's the only one that is supportive of AuntM. But she can't get through her head that AuntM was not an innocent person. I'm just washing my hands of the whole mess of em.

They fought over me when I was a baby. The nastiest custody battle in Johnson county is how one newspaper described it according to family. I was in fostercare with strangers. I was in fostercare with AuntB until daddy finally won over and the courts declared him full permanant custody. (long story short, BioM went insane...there are posts in here somewhere of it if you want to look for them) after that I wasn't told anything about alot of stuff because "they wanted to keep me having to go through more trauma" .....family secrets. Sigh. So FaveAunt is the only aunt that talks to me anymore. I don't know what happened between my High School days til now. I send christmas cards, I get none back. I finally got one back last year tho. From AuntB.

Sometimes I wonder if it's because I'm pagan. Maybe they found out and thier shunning me because of it? Or thier upset with me for not talking to BioM for so long (almost 5 years) because all she could do was swirl up false memories in her head and pretend she never drug me down the stairs by my hair during one visitation. Or pretend that when I told her I had cancer and could possibly never have my own children she said "well that's your punishment because you were taken away from me".......there is no repsonse to a statement like that..I hung up the phone. I don't need to be punished for the sins of my father nor for the sins of my mother. I can't help it she went insane and is still tittering on the edge. It has nothing to do with me!--altho some say it was the birth of me that caused her mental issues--

People can change. People do change. I've changed. I'm more responsible. I'm more understanding and caring of the world...FaveAunt said is extemely amazed at how well I have turned out and what an outstanding woman I am. But I guess with mental illness it's not so easy to change. I really thought she was getting better. And then AuntM had to go and divide the family again. There are some that still swear up and down she's as innocent as a flower. And there are others who are open to the truth and finally began to understand why this man shot her. But really? Is that cause for the whole family to be divided? AuntM's son is threatning to kill FaveAunt. Why? No idea. He's got it manifested in his head that she's the one that tipped off the police that AuntM is not innocent. She had nothing to do with it. Trust me they talked to enough witnesses to the scene of her wedding reception and FaveAunt was nowhere near the damn place.

Ok I'm just rambling now. I just want to know why BioM's family acts like I don't exist anymore. Why UncleD doesn't write or call me anymore. Why AuntM is going down a long path of destruction. Why AuntB doesn't call me anymore to just "see how I'm doing". She's got my number. She hasn't moved. I wrote her and sent her plenty of cards with my phone number. Why I havn't atleast recieved a letter back. I want to know why the family that fought over me so badly when I was a baby and treated me like I was precious jewels when I grew up now acts like I don't exist and never did. FaveAunt can't get a response out of them. She tells them to call me. I have these wonderful pictures of me and AuntB's sons (family portraits) from when I was living with them during the Custody Battle of the Century. I want to talk to W & T again. I miss the 2 boys I grew up thinking for atleast 3 years of my life that they were my brothers. When I had a nightmare W would take me from my bed and put me in with him. He was the perfect big brother protector while T was the big brother agitator. After Daddy won custody I'd go back every weekend and visit BioM's family. I'd stay the night at AuntB's house or FaveAunts or I'd stay at GrandmaJ's with AuntM & UncleD. Up until about my senior year that family was crazy insane about me and I'd see them all the time.

Now, granted I was never "close" to Daddy's side of the family. I saw them atleast 2x a year we'd go and vacation and stuff. When Daddy's Mom died the family kinda fell apart. We'd still go on our vacations but it wasn't the same. And now AuntE passed away from Lukemia not long after I moved up here, and couldn't go to the funeral.

You see, I don't think I could just head to Tennessee and see Daddy's family on my own without Daddy. I would be uncomfortable, etc. I'd feel out of place. But if its a trip Daddy's making I'm there. And I wouldn't be uncomfortable...Make sense? But if I was to make a trip to Arkansas and take a detour to BioM's family I wouldn't need her there for "cultural" support. Is it because I saw them more as I was growing up and daddy & BioM wasn't around when I was with them? That's got to be it.

I miss my family. I sure as hell don't understand my family. I have a crazy fucking family. (Daddy's side seems pretty normal however my cousins.......i don't agree with how my cousins are living thier lives.......well, some of them just the ones that are my age group......I don't get them...I really don't)

The one person I miss most in my family is FaveCuz. FaveAunt's eldest son. And my FaveAunt ofcourse... Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if she'd gotten custody of me instead. But I don't wonder for long because I had a great life growing up with Daddy. It was hard. It was rough. We didn't always have alot and there was a time when he worked 3 jobs just to support us. I wish I could have spent more time with Raquel when we were younger but when I got my own car trust me I made up for the lost time of everyotherweekend. (we have diff mommas) and as she got older during the summer her mom would let her stay with me for a few weeks as well.

You know what? They might be my family but screw em. If they don't want to talk to me because of something trivial (i still have no idea what the trivial thing is) then screw them. I have my baby sisters Pebbles & Raquel. I have my father & MomI. I also have GrandmaB and GrandpaB. Sometimes I have Swift. And most importantly I have Joe.