When Enough is Enough

When does one finally throw in the towel and just accept the fact that you cannot make your family care about you or what you have made your life be? My heart has been broken too many times by my family, so many times that I had to move two states away from them just to get some peace.

I find myself so envious of all my friends who have family, I have been my whole life. I figured that when I was grown up I would be able to just have a civil relationship with what little family I have left and I wouldn't care about the severe lack of effort on their part to be a real part of my life. But I still find myself in the same place- upset because once again because I believed for one fleeting second that this time things would be different and I would finally be cared about. Silly, foolish girl.

What hurts the most is that there is nothing I can do about it. Family isn't something you can buy, rent, steal, and you cannot make people care about you no matter how great you have made your life. There are times that I think that if I would have been a screw up like all my siblings people would haved cared a whole lot more than they do now.

How sad is it that my aunt, who was my legal guardian, missed my wedding (it was held 30 mins away from where she lives), my first house, the birth and every birthday of BOTH my girls, and every single great moment of my teen to adult life. And what does it say about me that I keep coming back for more?

Sigh... I am very thankful for my great husband who married into this mess of a family- I give him real credit for not running for the hills when I laid out my childhood in the foster care system. And I firmly believe that all of this has made me a better mother to my children. But I don't even want to think about how I am going to explain all this to my girls. Empty branches on family trees always raise questions.

I have no clue where to go from here... I want to get out of this destructive cycle but am torn between the hope that things will change and the reality that they are how they are. Meditation, therapy, coffee? Where is Doctor Phil with his words of wisdom?