…I’m ever gonna feel like I’m part of the family I was born into.
I just found out the the family I was born into 63 years ago is having a family reunion this weekend… and I wasn’t invited. Neither was my son. In fact, we didn’t even know it was happening this weekend. He still doesn’t know; he’s out of town on vacation and I’m “house-sitting” his dog.
The way I found out? I’m friends on Facebook with several of the younger family members and one of them just posted a bunch of photos from the reunion. “Having fun at the family reunion.” Yup. That was the caption. With the requisite hash tag identifying which family was having the reunion. Well, dang it. That’s my birth family!
Maybe I truly am not a part of this earthly family. Maybe my dad didn’t really exist. Maybe my last name really isn’t what I thought it was when I was born. Maybe it’s all a figment of my imagination. Heck. My imagination has probably made up things far more creative than being in family that I’m not really in.
But wait! I have some pics to prove it. Don’t I? Aren’t photos proof of earthly existence?
I really do have a Planet Earth birth-name family!
I left a comment for the person posting the pics asking if there’s a list of contact names and if so, can I get on it. We’ll see what happens! Maybe we’ll be going to a family reunion next year! Wouldn’t that be a hoot!?
In the meantime, I’m going to go back and check out her photos and see if I recognize anyone.
I’ll bet I do 😀
Know the feeling of being left out and the last to know! I have in fact little use for my siblings or their children…….but, I do love reading about your adventures! Take care, be happy and BE WELL!
Hi Dave!
Thanks for your comment! Sometimes just knowing there are others out there sharing the same experiences/feelings/whatever makes it all better – kind of like when our moms kissed an owie when we were little and it makes the owie all better. 😀
PS. I can’t actually remember my mom doing that to me but I know I kissed a few owies of my son’s!
i’m 70 and i have not been invited to any family reunions ever. when i lived at home and the reunions were there, well i was there. nothing since. to be honest i probably wouldn’t go now. i just don’t have any feelings. i don’t go to class reunions either. no feeling there either. i moved.
if you want to go ask the young ones to clue you in.
chocolate chips, outta ice cream. raz
Families are so weird! Before I was born (I’m 63), my dad’s family cut him off from the rest of the family (long story) – he had 5 brothers and sisters, only one of whom would still have anything to do with him. As a result, I grew up not knowing any of my dad’s side of the family, which is the one having the reunion this weekend. The year I turned 42 (21 years ago), my parents and their children (there were 4 of us at that time) plus my son, were invited to a reunion of some kind (not sure if it’s the same thing happening now or not) and my dad and I went, along with my then-husband (my mother refused to go because I was going). I knew one other cousin and I knew OF the distant cousin whose house it was at, although I’d never met her. There were over 80 people there! I was shocked at all these relatives I had no idea existed! Shocked 😀
I’m not even sure I’d go if I get invited next year. My mother has told her “story” about me to anyone who’ll listen, including both sides of the family, so I’m fairly certain I won’t get an invitation 😀 No skin off my teeth. I’m allergic to drama these days so they can have it, if that’s what happens.
In any event, it was a weird thing to find out on FB!
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment!
Hi Lois:
Welcome to the club. “Blood is thicker than water” has never made sense to me. Even Christ refused the company of his mother and brother knowing he had his own path. We are born to the world and each unique. We come THROUGH family but we do not need to imprison ourselves there. Families seem to expect us to be “like them”. Some of us can’t be that way or don’t WANT to be. I’m sorry for the pain of your being left out but I hope you’ll find your own way to turn a lemon into lemonade. If they didn’t invite you, it’s THEIR loss not to find out who you’ve become. Shame on them!!! It’s no loss to you because they are probably not your kind of people. Your kind of people support you for who you are. Your happiness depends on who you draw near to that supports you as you truly are.
Keep up the good work, Lois. We’ve all had our trials and appreciate sharing your courageous and positive journey.
Marilyn/Vancouver
Oh, Marilyn, one of the highlights of my journeys over the past several years was meeting you! Your words never fail to inspire me. Thank you for your “take” on this – I keep thinking I’m going to find my “tribe” out there somewhere and it doesn’t seem to be happening. I’m beginning to think that a lot of the people I have around me are of the “non-supportive” variety and I haven’t been able to move forward until I can let go of them. I have so many supportive people around me and I can’t fathom why I continue to try to find welcoming in areas where I know it doesn’t exist. So, right here, right now, I pledge that I am letting go of that which doesn’t support me, and bring me complete joy, and that includes people! Thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment full of encouragement – you rock, my friend!
Hi Lois,
I can so relate to your family experience of being excluded. During the last five years my 36 year old daughter has managed to make “divide and conquer” her mantra. There haven’t been any family reunions that I know of, but there have been five years of family holiday guest lists that my name has been deleted from. I don’t wish her anything bad, but I believe you can’t keep treating people like shit without some of it hitting you in the face.
Barbara, I have totally enjoyed making your acquaintance. The similarities in our lives have encouraged me because, as I’ve watched how you’ve handled them, I’ve drawn strength to walk through my own. Thanks for leaving a comment! Enjoy your day 😀
Hi Lois,
There’s an old saying you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family. Over my lifetime, as others have expressed, my family has been a very small part of my life. My father committed suicide at 42 and I was 21. My family disintegrated that day. Suicides are very painful and leave deep scars, blame, guilt, anger and bitterness. I could see all of that coming. So, I completed my last semester of college and left my home state of NJ never to return. I have two younger sisters. The three of us are nothing alike and have virtually nothing in common. People wouldn’t even recognize us as being related if they saw us together. My 4 year younger sister has never visited me or even made an effort in 48 years. I’ve always made the effort to visit her. My 11 year younger sister has had a very difficult life (she was 10 when our father died). I’ve attempted to help her, but it always backfires. I’ve attempted to make contact with aunt’s, uncles and cousins, but there was only one aunt and uncle (now deceased) who cared about me. One cousin (the son of the previously mentioned aunt and uncle) looked me up after about 40 years and had been searching for me for a couple decades. My mother and I were estranged until her death at 63.
So, I really don’t miss what I never had. My friends became my family. And, my out-laws (former in-laws) from my first and only real marriage have continued to embrace me as a member of their family 26 years after my wife and I separated. I am welcome at any of their homes all over the U.S. and I’m always invited to the large family reunions. That’s not blood, that’s friendship. My only son and I are close, but, we don’t smother each other. We communicate fairly regularly and always have great, long conversations. So, like Marilyn said, “blood is thicker than water” has never made sense to me either. I have many friends whose lives are passing them by because they are still attached at the hip to parents, brothers, sisters, offspring and grandchildren. If that is how they want to spend this priceless gift of time and life we’ve been given, I’m happy for them. As for me and people like us, somehow . . . we can’t miss or be attached to something we’ve never really had, so we’re lucky to be living free however our hearts and minds inspire and direct us. I don’t feel even slightly sorry for myself. And, it doesn’t really sound like you feel sorry for yourself nor do the other commenters.
Live Free & Be Happy,
Ed
You’re so right, Ed! Your last couple of sentences says it all. It was not especially pain that I felt when I discovered that a family reunion was taking place without me – it was more a sense that this family I was born into has never really recognized me as being a part of it. It isn’t their fault (well, it is for the old people – they knew my dad and knew he had 4 kids and yet continued to exclude us based on an event that happened out of anyone’s control way before I was born – resentment is alive and well and lives for generations!) because the young people were never told they had us as relatives, just like I was never told.
I do realize that our friends are the family we choose for ourselves – over the years, I haven’t really stayed in one place long enough to development friendships that have lasted the test of time and place. Through social media, though, I’ve made friends all over the world who’ve welcomed me into their lives as if we’ve known each other forever. Those are the people I want around me, that I want to support in their lives, that I want to interact with. One of the big things I get from all you friend-types out there who are my chosen-family is an unconditional acceptance – and that’s what it’s all about anyway, right?
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment, Ed. I’m looking forward to the next time our paths cross 😀
PS. My little brother committed suicide in 1996 here in Portland, a couple of years before I moved here. Knowing that events like that can “make or break” a family, I saw my own immediate family begin to fly apart at the seams and I militantly went about making sure it didn’t happen. Whatever that means. I insisted we get together once in awhile, insisted we meet up for dinners out, insisted we stay in contact with each other. Then 11 years later, my dad died. My mom, brother and sister did not make a call to tell me he’d been in the hospital for 3 weeks and then died. The day he went in the hospital was the day my mother deleted me from her remaining family. I’m the oldest of her 4 kids and my son is the only grandchild. I was angry, livid, beyond comprehension that a mother could delete her own child from her life – but looking back, she’s wanted to do it for a very long time; it was my father who kept me and my son in the family. With him gone, there was no reason for her to acknowledge me any more. Once I resolved the anger (and it took me quite a while), I was able to talk about it without wanting to slug her (or my siblings) and able to see that it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with them. It was a major step for me. The peace I feel today is beyond anything I could have ever hoped for. And for that, I’m grateful!
Right now my wanderings have taken me to within a couple hours’ drive of all my siblings. They’re aware I’m near and said I should visit. But I don’t want to. I saw them all last year and figured I had fulfilled familial obligations for the next five years, or until one of their funerals, whichever comes first. I was the youngest, with a considerable age gap between me and the closest sibling. And they’re all religious and I’m not. They have kids, grandkids and great grandkids they love to talk about. I intentionally have no children. I don’t fit my family. When I was a teen, I told a friend, “If I were to find out I was adopted, it would explain so much. If I was adopted from another planet, it would explain everything.”
Families are so weird. And I’m more convinced of that the older I get.
I remember saying something very similar when I was a teenager… I’m still convinced I’m not from here 😀
Lois, the best thing about all of this, is that you really do have proof of an “earthling family! The pictures prove it!! Here’s the thing–you are the one that matters the most to yourself, your friends, and family that do keep in touch with you. You’re the best my friend!! Hugs to you!!
Having not grown up with many family members around me, it’s not really something I’ve missed, so to speak. There have been times when I’ve envied their connection to a greater “family” but I know I’m here on this planet to do something different, to not be connected to an Earth family, to be more a member of the world’s family, for lack of a better description. Thanks for the kind words! I appreciate you!! Hugs back atcha!