Monday, August 9, 2004

I wish I could take their pain away...but how can I when they won't let it go?

I have completely lost any respect I ever had for about half of my extended family.

On Saturday My mom, my sisters and I went to a bridal shower for my cousin Chris' bride to be Alex, and a bridal shower for my moms cousin Terri. The bridal shower went ok all things considered, although my grandma (who is very judgmental and is constantly making excuses for her actions) was glaring in my direction during most of the shower because I was sitting next to my cousin sara (chris's little sister) who has completely rebelled against her LDS upbringing and is the model of Hot Topic goth/punk-ness(much to my grandma's disapproval). It didn't really surprise me when my grandma snuck out of the shower early without so much as a backward glance at any of us, although after Alex opened the presents from the bridesmaid it was probably for the best.
After the shower we went out to the van to go to the other shower only to find that our van (the same van which stranded us in the middle of Death Valley in 113 degree weather and which my dad had finished fixing the day before) would not start and no one could get it to work. Which meant that we all had to pile into my cousins cars to be able to reach the baby shower on time. After a good amount of swearing and back talk between my cousins we finally got divided up and on our way. Shelli and I went with Sara's sisters Emily (who is getting married in october) and Bethany, while my mom and the rest of my sisters went with Sara and her mom. After arriving at the shower I was shocked with the difference between My cousins and my Mom's cousins. Sara and her siblings clothed in black and chains, Terri and her siblings in pastels. Sara and Bethany left soon after we arrived to go drop some of Sara's friends off at their homes while I sat with my family and chatted with Terri and her family. After a while Sara came back and she and bethany convinced Emily to give them a ride to emily's house (They didn't look like they felt comfortable around terri and her family. Emily agreed and shelli and I followed her to her car (as she was our ride previously) and we soon made it to Emily's house.
Now I have not had the best opinion of sara, emily, and bethany for a long time. I had known that Emily had been sleeping around for years and honestly wondered why she and her Fiance had even bothered to get married, and knew that sara and Beth were probably going to turn out just like her. Arriving at Emily's house did nothing to raise that opinion. The first thing I saw when I walked in was a huge stack of Porn Magazines and a collection of "Girls gone wild" DVDs. Even that wasn't much of a surprise but after seeing the rest of the house (sara fortunately put away the magazines away soon after we arrived). It was only after we sat down to watch a movie that things really started getting ugly. Entirely in an attempt to pull my chain, Sara reaches over, grabs the "girls gone wild" DVD's and asks shelli and I which one we want to watch. Now in order to fully understand how I felt at that moment you have to understand the rest of my family. I have an uncle who used to be addicted to porn and it has completely messes up his life. He's stopped looking at it now but because of his addiction he's in the middle of a very nasty divorce, and his life has pretty much been a living hell because of it, and Sara knows this nearly as well as I do, and had just offered me the very substance that destroyed his life, not 1 hour past the last time we had talked about him. I absolutely refused (much to the relief of Shelli who's eyes nearly popped out of her head when the movies were offered) and told her in no uncertain terms that, though I didn't care if she wanted to ruin her life with that junk, But I would have no part in it. She then went on to explain he philosophy that drugs, sex, and porn didn't make you a bad person (which I'm sure was her motive in offering it in the first place was for, I could tell she needed some way to justify her life choices after being around so many "goodie goodies" earlier), to which I reminded her about my uncle which started her on a rant that "Since her family was genetically programed to not be addicted to things, obviously she wasn't addicted to it either". Needless to say I was very glad when Emily came in from the other room and told Sara to knock it off. With that settled and a safer movie on the screen Sara offered me some cookies Which I accepted with the caution that there had better not be any questionable substances in them. Which started Sara off again on how drugs don't make you a bad person as she had tried Crack cocaine before and it hadn't hurt her and she's still the same old sara. Bull.
After my parents got the van fixed and dropped me off at work I was really grateful that Kholers was busy and I didn't have much time to think about the day's events. I had plenty of time afterward to ponder on it though. Honestly right now I don't hate my cousins and highly doubt that I could. I only pity them. I can guarantee that not one of them will be married in the temple and that at least one of their marriages will end up in a divorce, if not all of them. Sara and Emily will continue with their parties and their drugs, sex and porn while poor bethany, who is about 2 years younger than me, will most likely end up having slept with a boy before I even get my first kiss, not because she "loves him" but to prove to her sisters that she's just as "cool" as they are, and none of them will ever really be happy with the choices they've made.
*sighs* And there's nothing anyone can do about it.

I could really really use a hug right now.

4 comments:

failon said...

*hug*
No one in my family has had a temple marriage yet. We were sealed later, but that's it. 3 divorces so far... and that's my immediate family.
I don't tend to associate with my extended family much...
*hug*

anischmidt said...

Thanks *hugback*
Out of my 4 sets of cousins;1 set is made up of the cousins I mentioned, 1 set is going through the divorce (the one with my uncle) and my aunt could be declared legally insane, 1 set my uncle(my mom's brother) got married, had two kids,1 of which is an alcoholic and a drug addict and has been shunned completely, divorced and remarried to a lady who would probably have a heart attack and shun any child of hers who even considered a non temple marriage, and 1 set who actually seems to be turning out normal. Then us. An of course my moms parents who got divorced when she was my age, her father has been married to 7 people (thankfully not all at the same time) and was just married to a lady who is younger than his youngest child, and her mother who got married to this guy who's just as ornery as she is at times (and they live down the street from us) and my dads parents who refuse to live any where near us because my dad's mom hates my mom and thinks that we mistreat them every time they come to stay (which hasn't been for several years).
*sighs* and hardly any of them will ever be truly happy in their lifetime.
Yeah, Which pretty much explains my lack of respect for them, unfortunately I don't have much of a choice as to whether I associate with them or not.

queen_of_dead said...

*HUG*
Been there done that
NO FUN
=D luv ya

anischmidt said...

*hugback*

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