Happy Easter!

holiday seasons typically see mixed emotions from me.

I live about four hours drive from my family these days and I don’t see very much of them except for times like easter and christmas etc.

I love my family, but in truth I’m ok with that.

I’ve tried very hard not to love them over the last few years and goodness knows they’ve given me reason not  to, but still I can’t do it.

It’s one of the things that frustrates me about myself, I believe I’m a reasonably strong person but the fact that I just can’t move on from them shows me I’m not as strong as I believe and that in truth, I’m weak.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the movie “Million dollar baby” with Clint Eastwood and Hillary Swank, (if you haven’t I recommend it) the relationship Maggie Fitzgerald has with her family in the movie is very much the same as my relationship with mine.

A big part of me wishes my heart weren’t as soft as it is, I feel my life might be (and have been) much easier.

So BF and I have made the trip up to spend easter with them. We haven’t seen them since Christmas, because we’ve been busy with our business, and although they’re always saying they’ll come to visit, (interestingly) they never do.

My mother is not a well woman, her health has been failing her for the past few years and has started to decline even more rapidly.

She was always a pretty strong woman when I was growing up, a proud person when it came to what she believed was important of herself (motherhood mainly) although she would likely deny it if you’d asked her.

In my own way I sought her help VERY early in life, but she either did not realise what I was asking for or she chose to ignore it.

I can make justifications (more than one) for either scenario (some selfish, some not), but continually she swears I was not there, denies any knowledge of me or my situation.

She reeks of guilt to me, but this is a long winded story and perhaps one for another post at another time.

SO! she was (or appeared to be) always a strong and capable woman when I was growing up, but now days her health is failing, she’s pretty much wheelchair bound, and relies upon others for nearly everything.

Yet when I’m here, she still tries with all her emotional energy to be and believe she is that strong and capable woman.

The truth is what it is though, and the truth is she is not that person any more (if she ever even was to begin with)

I worked that out some time ago personally, but I think she’s in denial of that and believes she can still “game” me, that she can “get away” with it and that by doing so she won’t have to admit to me, but more importantly herself, that she isn’t/wasn’t as strong and perfect as she thought herself to be.

She’s getting to be an old woman, she has little to show for herself and her life and the health she has given up (the price she has paid) aside from her family and children.

as much as she hurts me by her denial of me and my life and my existence how am I to take the same (her life) away from her? I don’t want to kill her or for her to die with a broken heart feeling her life was pointless or worth nothing (I won’t have too, she feels that way on her own anyway).

My brother and sister resent me, for anything that they find convenient at any particular moment of the day, but I think the truth is that they see the toll that me and my condition has taken on my mother and her health and blame me.

What I don’t think they consider for even a single moment is that her guilt is due to the fact that she chose to ignore me for what she believed to be the good of all three of us, especially my (younger) sister who had a chronic lung condition as a baby and child and who was not expected to live past 15 (none of which ended up being for my best interests in the end).

SO! we could all play the “blame game” really but the difference between me and them is that I chose not too. It wouldn’t do any good any way, life is what it is now, and it’s not nearly as bad as it could be.

That leaves my Dad.

My Dad told me once (after starting transition, to my face) that I “used to be his favourite child”.

I can only guess that my sister is his favourite now, in truth I always thought she was to begin with, but I guess that’s because I was overlooking the fact that in his eyes, I was a boy. (whoopsy!) 

And so as sad and lonely as it makes me, it’s just easier if I don’t visit much.

Life is not easy for a girl, especially if she was born transsexual.

Happy easter!