I’m from a small family. My dad was an only child and my mom was from a different state, and had one sibling, so I have 2 cousins, they’re all out of state and I only see them rarely.
I have a sister, and we were never close, but we tolerated each other, until she snapped.
I never ended up having a family of my own.
I enjoyed family gatherings when I was young, both locally with my parents and my sister, and brother in law after she got married, and when we traveled to Ohio to see my relatives there.
My brother in law is from a big successful family, and I came to dread holidays here as years went by, due to not fitting in. His parents were great, but then you add his brothers and sisters, their spouses and then kids, it got loud and crowded, and I’d get lost in the mob.
It didn’t help that my brother in laws siblings all were sort of arrogant elites and my sister got more and more woke and negative towards me as time passed, both since I didn’t have a 5000 sq ft luxury house to host elegant gatherings, a prestigious job title, and because I don’t vote like her and her inlaws.
Tragically, one of her daughters got cancer, and after a 4 year battle, died in 2012 at 18. My sister became an almost unfunctional basket case for several years after, in her grief.
She finally started to get better, but was drinking a lot, and started to become sort of bipolar, several times suddenly blowing up in rage against me for no real reason when I was over at their place.
I became increasingly uncomfortable being there not knowing when she’d fly into one of her rages at me.
In ‘16 she was really getting worked up about the upcoming elections, and one day at dinner started ranting about politics, went postal on me and physically threw me out of their house screaming a flurry of F bombs at me, right in front of my then 80 year old mom. We haven’t spoken since.
My mom was heartbroken but isn’t assertive, so she hoped we’d make up someday, I made it clear that without family counseling to understand my sisters hate for me, that wouldn’t happen. She thought that a good idea but would never make it happen.
I was actually pleased to be relieved from not having to deal with being the black sheep at big holiday gatherings anymore.
In fact, on that first thanksgiving I was excluded, I went out that evening to a Black Friday sale at a sportings goods store and stocked up on bargain ammo at the early bird Black Friday special they had, that I wouldn’t be able to go to if I was tied up at her big dinner. And I thought it hilarious thinking how upset her and her lefty in laws would be if they knew I was now free to buy something they thought evil!
My mom has been in assisted living and I go there to join her for holiday buffets they have. My sister moved out of state a few years ago, and would sometimes have my mom and her mother in law who lives here, out there. It made it complicated for them trying to figure out how to get the 2 elderly mothers out there. I feel so fortunate to have been shunned by them, thus relieved of having to chauffeur them out and be tied up out there for days!
