The Goal

Everyone has their own kind of crazy and it stands to reason that it gets its start in childhood, so when my sister drives me crazy I know that some part of me comes from the same place.

What is it that makes one person branch out in one direction and another in the other? Is it pecking order growing up, or simple personal differences? 

Probably a little bit of both.

Growing up, I saw things that made me want to steer away from many of my family's most cherished traits. My sister embraced them all fully. The people I was taught to look upon as odd turned out to be the very people I have tried to emulate as an adult. (And I am aware that they have their weak points too.) 

My mother, my uncle and my grandmother are known as family icons of hard work and kindness. Yet I remember my mother and uncle getting so angry they threw furniture and the occasional living creature against the wall. These similarities had to come from somewhere. Were they from their mother, the youngest, most adored child of a large family who became a woman so famed for being a tiny whirlwind of self sacrifice that people always overlooked what even I saw as a child? 

Nobody could have possibly loved grandma more than grandma, although she didn't mind them trying.

The immense amount of creativity and love in our family were eclipsed by the fact that all the world was a stage and there could only be one star who tied rags covered in Ben-Gay around her head, weeded the garden right after work so people going home would notice, and had a closet filled to the ceiling with matching outfits, purses and spiked heels. She deserved it. She was tiny, self sacrificing and hard working. Her insincere smiles still haunt me. She was controlling, passive aggressive and narcissistic.

Imagine growing up believing that your main goal in life was to be tiny, beautiful and to perfect the art of working yourself to death in the public eye. 

Wouldn't it be nicer to shoot for being happy and fulfilled? And making sure your children had the tools to do the same?

I tried. I really tried. I read books, went to counseling, talked to people who should know and I think I finally veered off the family path into something a bit more humane. The problem lies in loving the people who didn't.