A Loving Family

Within all that has been occuring for me my entire life, I have always maintained that I WILL have a warm caring and loving family, one where I feel loved and welcome, needed and appreciated.  To me this is what signifies family, however, I am coming to the realization that if you did not grow up within that dynamic, it becomes so very much harder to manifest it in the here and now.  And this is where I have had so much drama...........family.

Perhaps this is why I love to watch those nighttime drama shows depicting all sorts of families.......the ones that grow as a unit, always supportive through thick and then and the other ones.......those that show how much dysfunction can actually manifest in the quest for what we all desire.

My own birth family was rife with drama.  I remember dreading family get togethers instead of looking forward to them with anticipation.  There was always yelling and fighting - aunts, uncles, fathers, mothers and grandparents, while we kids try to pretend that we were still having a good time.  I remember just blocking it all out but unfortunately, to this day, I still suffer stress and anxiety - those feelings that I stuffed as I played with my brother and cousins. 

I attempted to have the family that I dreamed of when I married and had children but alas, that was not in the cards.  My kids are in their 30's now but it was only a few years ago that my daughter finally explained her "anger" towards me for so many years.  We are now close and share from the heart but still she said she held so much animosity towards me because, according to her, I broke up the family. 

Some people say I should share with my kids why I had to get away from an atmosphere that was so hard on me but I never could as I did not want to taint their love for their father.  Some parts of it I shared, others I did not.  He was a great guy but he just could not be nice to me when in the presence of others.  He thought it was funny to ridicule me constantly, make derogatory comments about my body - I could go on and on but, suffice to say, I had to get away from him to save myself and my children from growing up with a mother who didn't stand up for herself.  I felt weak and worthless in that relationship and that is not how I wanted them to see me.

Of course my husband came from a harsh background so he too didn't understand what a loving family was either.  He had a whole whack of siblings, who were close, and those sustained him I presume.  Still his issues coupled with mine did not have the glue to sustain a loving and caring relationship.  He claimed to love me but I didn't FEEL it.

Now with the challenges I have faced with my son, I am back to what IS a loving family?  My son had maintained that when he had a family of his own, I would get MY happy, loving family but that hasn't manifested either.  It fact, our relationship is so out of whack it amazes me.  I hold myself responsible for really thinking I would find what I had been seeking.  He has said that I am not his family - his wife and daughter are - but not me.  When I tried to address this thinking on his part, he just gets mad  and will not communicate or he will yell AT me, not talk TO me or WITH me.

Being able to get my thoughts out is so important to me.  Without the words I would perish, surely...  And now, that I am not being given the opportunity to communicate with my son, I will simply wish him well and send him loving thoughts.  In the meantime, I will continue to write...and share Soul to Soul quietly in my own way.  I know he will feel this love and that will sustain ME.

I used to write daily - poetry, a journal, columns that went out into cyberspace. I even ventured into erotica......that was fun.........smile.  But for the past couple of years I have discontinued the practice.  The Muse has been calling me gently of late and I am seeing the positive affects of getting these thoughts out on the page again and this is a good thing.

I thank you, whoever you are, for reading these thoughts of mine.  It means a lot to me knowing that others are connected, if only through your reading of these words.  We are all connected anyway....sometimes we just never meet in the flesh.  So Soul to Soul it will be.

Namaste.