Rant on Family and Thanksgiving

Seriously? Are you fricking kidding me? You CANNOT be for real. WHAT THE FUCK MAN?

That was me half an hour ago reading a comment from one of my dad's relatives on a picture of my kid brother and I when we were both under the age of ten and very little. Today is his birthday (my brother), and being overseas with a crappy phone connection and sometimish internet connection, I wished him happy birthday via facebook and changed my profile picture to the said picture of us back in the day. I was probably 7, he was probably 1. I'm nostalgic and I love old pics and the like so he saw it coming, thanked me for the wish and poked me non-stop for the rest of the day.

This particular picture has been in one of my albums on facebook for a year or two, and I just cropped it and made it my profile picture. I have two brothers. This one is 6 years younger than me, the baby in our set is 12 years younger. I have tons of pictures with the three of us or both of them or each of them with me or some how or the other on facebook. I talk about them constantly and annoy people with my constant talk about them. I've been invited to one family get-together earlier this year since returning to this crappy country in 2010 and I talked about both of my brothers then too. This particular relative of my dad's was there, and I giggled with her preteen/early teens daughter about my brother and gave her juicy stories of our adventures and twisted plots as kids. This relative of my dad's and her daughter had been to New York to visit my brothers, conveniently only realizing they existed after I left the country. The daughter thought my brothers were fun and wrestled with my kid brother. The day went by very awkwardly as the only person in the family that seemed okay with my being there was this relative person's daughter, who ironically reminded me of a younger version of myself. The relative made a passing comment that was something like "Oh, yeah, we visit them. Yeah, we saw them. Yeah, yeah, yeah we go to New York and see them all the time."

Maybe I was talking about them too much. I know I do that sometimes. In my defense, everyone else was ignoring me and silencing the room if I left and came back, so if the one person who was talking to me was talking to me about my favorite people, HELL FUCKING YES I was going to talk about them. So I wish my teenage brother a happy fucking birthday and reminisce with this picture, and then I see this relative person asks me if it's x or y. By x or y, I mean substitute each brother's name. WHAT THE FUCK? You claim to visit them "all the time" and oh yeah, you see them and you know how they're doing, and you don't know who's who? It's a picture of a 3 1/2 foot tall ridiculously skinny me, and a chubby-ish darker little boy who obviously looks like my kid brother. Both brothers have distinct looks. The youngest is light-skinned, like me, skinny, a little nerdy looking, and lanky (all like me). The other was always chubby but now has an athletic build, eventually got tall a couple years ago, and has always been noticeably darker than the youngest and I. How the hell do you confuse them? The three of us represent three very distinct different age groups and although we all look like my dad and like we're related, we look very different! How the fuck do you not know who is who?

What really pisses me off here, is that my great-aunt passed away from Cancer two weeks after my youngest brother was born and I celebrated my birthday, and a month after my kid brother was nearly crippled in a car accident. The entire month (February 2003) that my aunt was dying, our apartment was FLOODED with strangers "family", including this relative person. My bed became a heap of coats, and I slept in whatever little space I could make in a corner, my kid brother was still on crutches and needed help doing simple things like getting to the bathroom, and my mother had just given birth and was not only dealing with regular postpartum stuff, but was suffering from postpartum depression as well. Add a newborn baby, who was not even a week old when family came pouring in, to that mix. I should also add that my dad was the only person working in our family, as a laborer, and that February was the mother of all snowstorms I've ever experienced. As soon as one was over, another begun. NOT A SINGLE FAMILY MEMBER/RELATIVE GAVE A FUCK DURING THIS TIME.

I would wake up, help my mother get to the bathroom, clean her up, get her something to eat; change, feed, and put the baby to sleep, tidy the house, get my kid brother bathed, bathroomed, changed, and breakfasted, and get to school. Get home from school to repeat the whole process and attend to two apartments full of people talking about my dying aunt going to hell and how they wanted to go shopping and ordering my parents around to carry them shopping and who wanted to eat what, while my mother, the neighbor, and I cleaned up after everyone, made sandwiches, pastries, and quick jumbo-sized meals and struggled to keep our heads on. Nobody wanted to even look at the baby, and when I brought him out in his bassinet people actually looked annoyed and disgusted and one time, kicked me out from the one game of cards I was offered to play because I brought the baby who might wake up and cry and disturb the game. Nobody helped my postpartum mother who already had a butt-load of mental issues before the baby. Nobody helped or even offered to help with the cleaning and putting away of items placed askew everyday, or with dirty dishes, or cooking, or laundry, or kid brother on crutches, or the shipload of demands they put on my dad who was STILL working throughout all this. That was one of the hardest years of my entire life. To top that off, my great-aunt was the only person in the family who treated me well and always greeted me with love and affection and considered me as her own daughter. She would stay in New York for up to half a year at a time for her treatments, and I would meet with her every day after school. She encouraged me in everything I wanted to do and was the only person to always believe in me and not wave me off as a dumb little kid. I don't think I've ever been that close to anyone in my family, and here was a bunch of strangers family/relatives saying horrible things about her and laughing and joking about it, and putting on a show of tears when it came to getting discounts on buying clothes for her burial. Everyone had a big mouth, but nobody had helping hands. You're telling me, after staying with my family through THAT ordeal, despite how many times you visit New York now or how many times you see them, you can't tell the difference between two of my brothers who are in two different generations and very, very different in EVERY way possible?


Sigh. I know my hormones are probably over-reacting to this one little comment, but seriously? I'm beyond pissed. I've taken crap from both my parents for years about how I don't try hard enough to make the family like me and accept me. WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO? I'm sorry, but I do not suck up. I look down on people who do and even if my life depended on it (and it has) I still will not suck up. I will not pretend to be someone I am not and I will not set an example for anyone, especially not my brothers or future child/ren of being someone who makes themself suffer in the vain hope of spending over two decades trying to win people over. Especially not for people like that.

I don't celebrate Thanksgiving for the Indians and Pilgrims. Honestly, it was a false get-together to earn the trust of the natives before the outsiders stole from them, abused them, and slaughtered them. Kind of like my family, lol. You can put as many pretty pictures in the history books as you want, but that's the way I see it. I love Thanksgiving because it is ONE day in the year when people come together to spend time with the people they love and give thanks. Not for presents, not for sex, not for political enforcement, but for love and thanks. I think those are two things everyone should set aside time for even if it's just for one day in the year. I'm in another country, broke, as weak as a dying fish, and lonely as hell, but I'm still celebrating Thanksgiving by giving thanks for my brothers, my dad, my husband, and my fur babies. I have a handful of friends (literally like two or three people) who have stuck by my side through trying moments, even now, which can be quite a challenge, and I'm immensely thankful for them too. I don't need a damned turkey or to half-kill myself trying to get some strangers  relatives to give me their stamp of approval.

I believe in leading by example. I want my brothers and future child/ren to know that the most important approval to have from anyone is from yourself. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY is worth a lifetime of unhappiness and issues trying to get them to like you. NOBODY is worth that. Not even me. There are a lot of people who don't like me, and I accept that. I want to focus on my little circle of people that DO like me. Not many people have even bothered to try to get to know me or stick with me through anything and I have been through hell and back numerous times, which means the people I've leaned on have also faced battles with me and are still there. These are the people that are worth it. These are the people that I would half-kill myself slaughtering a bird and cooking dead flesh for 10-20 hours and tiring out my arms whipping up pastries and side dishes and main dishes and the like for. These are the people that I know are so genuinely deserving of being presented a great feast and being offered my thanks and love especially because they wouldn't even ask such things from me. They wouldn't demand such things or order me around or tell me how many things are wrong with me or give me condescending lectures or make snarky comments about me or interrogate me like a criminal or forget who I am. Screw what the blood tests and medical papers say. These people are my family. Not those selfish, proud, bigoted, two-faced ninnies who can't see past their own noses stuck so high up in the air.

Am I a horrible person for thinking that way? I've been told I am. Guess what? I DON'T GIVE A FUCK. I am there for the people that need me and the people that I need are there when I need them. I'll admit, with this pregnancy, I did try to be nice to the family and include them in what was going on and try to be however I needed to be to get the stamp of approval. I called everyone and told them I was pregnant, I post monthly ultrasound pictures on facebook, and guess what? None of them care. Nobody calls or asks how I am or how the baby is or if I need help or gives any positive comments or anything of the sort. When one of my aunts was pregnant,as soon as I got home from school on weekdays and all day during weekends, I massaged her back, cleaned her house and yard, dyed her hair when she deemed it necessary, helped her kids with homework and school things, helped her with cooking and laundry, baked cakes and pastries at least once a week for her and her family, and bought her a multi-whatsit high end pack n play and as much baby clothes as I could afford to. When my mom was pregnant with my youngest brother, I was much younger, but old enough to understand what was going on, and I slept on the floor by her bedside every night until her morning sickness stopped, emptied her vomit bucket daily, took her to the bathroom, made the meals I was limited to cooking at my age for her, massaged her feet, head, and shoulders daily, wiped her down when she was heated, and since the brunt of the household work like cleaning and laundry were already my responsibility, I happily continued with that. When my sister-in-law was pregnant, I did all of the daily cooking and cleaning every day anyway and she grew up on hired help so she never had to lift a finger, I baked sweets at least every week and offered that as well as at least three hot meals a day to her, cleaned up after the messes she, her husband, and her dog made, her husband did their laundry, her dad cut coconuts to give her coconut water and jelly daily, and in addition to my meals and sweets, her dad cooked special meals a few times a week for her, and brought sweets and meals his relatives had sent for her. Her mother and in-laws sent money and maternity and baby supplies and she eventually went to New York to stay for the last trimester and deliver the baby and stay for the first few months of the baby's life, all sponsored with people clamoring to help. My husband's cousin-in-law was about four months pregnant ahead of me, and she has a maid and a cook, as well as her mother-in-law cooking separate meals throughout the day anyway, both her husband's family and her in-laws were falling over themselves to help and buy things and cook for her and help with any little thing that needed done. She continued working by choice, and that was the only thing she had to lift a finger to do. Why is it that every time someone I know is pregnant, they become royalty and now that it's my turn, I'm chopped liver? If I was a horrible drunk who abused people and spit on them and had a criminal record and tried to kill everyone near me I would say "okay, I guess I understand how they feel" and let it go at that, but what the hell man? I've done a lot for a lot of people, especially when someone is pregnant, and as usual, I don't get what I give. The very same relative person who made the comment today asked where a picture of my belly was on facebook days after I announced the pregnancy somewhere around a month and half. One of my dad's other cousins sends me a message once , sometimes twice a month asking how the pregnancy is going and updates me on her pregnant sister. I've had brief conversations with two relatives, asking one for their opinions on pregnancy-related stuff based on their experiences, and describing my experiences so far to the other, and there's been nothing more than that. I know there are single teen moms with nobody who go through it all on their own but that's the thing. I'm a married adult. I may have gotten pregnant unintentionally, but my child has both parents involved who are consenting, mature adults. And for the amount of strangers relatives/family I'm supposed to have, or at least just the people I think I've been good to, there's no one there.

I was born out of wedlock, so I'm bad. I look like my dad, so I'm bad. I look like my mom, so I'm bad. I matured early, so I'm bad. I was good in schoolwork but not sports, so I'm bad. I didn't grow up in the same country as my cousins, so I'm bad. I grew up isolated from family and I still don't know everybody, so I'm bad. I went back to high school to get better grades, so I'm bad. I wanted to go to college when my parents couldn't afford to send me, so I'm bad. I had a problem with my mother living with a married man and constantly beating me up and kicking me out of the house, so I'm bad. I spoke up about being abused and molested by people in the family, so I'm bad. When I was working 16 hour shifts 7 days a week to support a family of 5, I didn't have time to take my brothers to the park, so I'm bad. I pulled various muscles and made myself sick taking care of my mom after her tummy tuck and liposuction while fighting off her controlling boyfriend who wrote down Spanish insults and translated them to her as he insulted her daily during that time, so I'm bad. I was forced to move out and leave the country and I did, so I'm bad. I filed a domestic violence report against my mother after she nearly killed me in front of my baby brother, so I'm bad. I traveled overseas with two overweight suitcases and a carry-on filled with clothing and goodies to give to family while I was still nursing a twisted ankle, multiple bruised ribs, and multiple bruises and wounds about my body and then contracted dengue fever and could not deliver all the items while I was being hospitalized, so I'm bad. I was threatened, insulted, and harassed as was many of my friends and husband's relatives, so I'm bad. I've been bedridden more times than I can count and was told I was dying twice before I got married, so I'm bad. I got married young to escape my family and get protection, so I'm bad. I didn't get through with work right away, so I'm bad. I got through with a job and my husband gave up his career to support mine, so I'm bad. I ended my career to focus on my health (and sanity) and my husband's health after his heart attack, so I'm bad. I have crappy in-laws, so I'm bad. I got pregnant, so I'm bad.

Seriously? What more can they throw at me? I guarantee I've heard it all before. You name it, I've probably been accused of it. Everything I do is made out to be bad. I'm done trying. I am so, so, so, done trying. It's about damned time people understand that I deserve to be happy. My parents did a great job teaching me to cook, clean, wash, serve others, put others before myself, and sacrifice my happiness and comfort for others. What about making myself happy? What about making friends? What about having fun? What about loving life? No lessons there. I'm still trying to figure those things out, and I hope I do it in time to teach Superbaby. I've said time and time again that I'm going to start putting myself first and somehow or the other Taurus man reminds me that I always end up going right back to square one. Hopefully this time I can respect myself enough to follow through.

Are there many, many things wrong with me? Yes. And I understand if that offends or bothers people. Am I messed up? Yes. And I understand if that offends or bothers people. Do I have issues? Yes. And I understand if that offends or bothers people. Do I have qualities or quirks that some people don't like? Yes. And I understand if that offends or bothers people.  Wait a minute. What am I saying? Are there many, many things wrong with me? Am I messed up? Do I have issues? Do I have qualities or quirks that some people don't like? Uhhhh........ According to a CollegeNow psychology course I took during my last year in high school, that applies to EVERYONE in some way or the other. Oh my goodness. How do people live with each other? You gotta give love and thanks, people. Love and thanks.



P.S. The relative person just commented in response to my explanation of our age differences (for example, one brother is 6 feet tall and looks like a football player, the other is still very, very short, and abnormally skinny) with "oh yeah wow they look alike". ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? ARE YOU MOHTERFUCKING KIDDING ME? *exhales slowly* Love and thanks, people. Love and thanks.