Kristy Kelly: Meeting my parents
Under normal circumstances, it’s often hard to understand our parents and why they made the decisions that ultimately sculpted us to become the people we are today. I think I am who I am today in spite of mine.
I love my parents and want nothing but success for them in their lives, in their relationships, and with their goals. I just don’t know anything about them. This is not a fault of theirs, but of mine.
This Thanksgiving, my family got together for the first time in a decade or so. It was my mother, my father and stepmother, my three sisters with their spouses. With the exception of maybe a sister’s wedding, I’m pretty sure my mother and father haven’t been in the same room in over 35 years. No one holds grudges quite like we do.
It took me forever to want to go, even longer to convince myself not to cancel, and at least two weeks of driving my poor fiancée insane with my neurotic what-ifs. Half convinced I’d need to set aside bail money just to have a dinner with the people I share DNA with, it’s safe to say that I was a little apprehensive about the event.
It turned out to be a lovely day. We had enough shared history to usually find something to talk about, and our parents appeared to be normal, functioning adults. What struck me as unexpected was the foreign feel of the woman who gave birth to me. I recognized her face, and her voice, but couldn’t tell you a single thing about her life. Not what she likes to eat for breakfast, her favorite color, or how she spends her time. I just know that I didn’t like her actions decades ago and I still see her as that person. For some reason, only known to my neurotic brain, she carries the brunt of my discontent.
As a child, I felt tossed around like a hot potato, living with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and occasionally my mother or my father. Once grown, my sisters told me how jealous they were that I got to live with other people. The ironic part was it always made me feel unwanted. That’s where my parents differ. At no point in my life has my father ever made me feel as though he regretted bringing me into this world.
We’re all adults now and the past is, for the most part, in the past. My sisters appear to have decent relationships with our mother, father, and stepmother, whereas I have always felt disconnected. It’s foreign to want different, but I think that’s where I’m at in life. I either want the full connection, or none at all.
The problem is, I don’t think I know how. For someone good with words, you’d think I’d know just what to say to make it happen. Instead I stay quiet, waiting for a miracle.
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