Family can be so many things. My family tends to lean more toward the "I-told-you-so" type of family. I'm sure you know what I mean. They will tell you whatever your dream might be it is stupid and unobtainable. They will tell you all the reason why you can't do it and why it's a bad idea. Then, if you fail they are quick to stay "I told you so" just to make themselves somehow feel better. It wouldn't be fair for me to say my entire family is like that, but I'd have to say more than half.
I'm one of those rare individuals that prefers my in-laws to my blood family. I'm constantly in awe of my them, even after the seven years that my husband and I have been married. His family is so supportive and rarely hold grudges, and if there is some bad blood it is not gossiped about. I've never been around a group of people that made me feel so welcomed and cared for. They give me what I've always longed for from my own family.
I feel blessed to have experienced that sort of family environment. I had always felt that the only time I would ever be part of a real family is when I was a mother. I'm not yet a mother but I feel that I have a support system around me that is going to support me no matter what I choose to do.
When I was growing up, my mother bounced from one husband to another and I never felt that I had that family I could lean. My siblings all lived with other people so I was essentially an only child. The only person that gave me any sense of stability was my grandmother. To my husband, I described her as a cranky old bat - but she was my cranky old bat. She was opinionated and honest; she knew she made mistakes in her life; she knew she had made the best apologies she could for those mistakes and she wasn't about to dwell on them. She would make the occasional snide comment behind someone's back but at her age, I felt she deserved that privilege.
When my grandmother passed, it took my mother all of fifteen minutes to start complaining about my aunts and uncles. How fake they were and how they had not been there for her until she died. I was distracted by grief otherwise I would have reminded her that I was the only one who remembered her last birthday and Mother's Day. As I worked through my grief, I felt a sense of peace. I didn't have any unresolved issues or hurt feelings. I had always tried to make her feel remembered and still cared for. I wasn't a perfect granddaughter, but I also accepted her for who she was.
I guess the moral of the story is family is what we make it, like most things in life. I could easily choose to focus on all the negativity my family likes to create, or I can focus on the positive environment and relationships I want to have with the people in my life now. We don't get to choose who we are related but we can decide how they influence us. I have seen the cycle and am in the process of breaking it. I will not allow my family to hold me back, and I feel like any one who uses their family as an excuse for their shortcomings need to grow up.
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