I Can't Go Home

I can't go home. I just can't.

'F' Christmas. I just can't do it this year.

My cousin sent links to pics of our family gathering at Thanksgiving. Family should be about good times and good memories, but all I felt when looking at those pictures was saddness and hurt and anger. It's complicated.

We all get along, don't get me wrong. And we are all very close, having grown up together. But I've always felt different from the rest of my family, both with immediate family and with the extended members. It's possible that these feelings are self-imposed, but there is some reality to this feeling, too. Part of it is a rebellion of the cultural norms and expectations imposed on me, and the other part is a personality conflict of sorts.

My family doesn't know ME. What they know is their perception of me, and that perception is based on their expectations. I've never felt it was ok just to follow my heart or to do the things were outside of the norm. Their love for me wasn't liberating. It was constricting. And now I struggle with it because those messages are ingrained in me and are now part of my internal dialogue. How do I, as an adult, reprogram those messages and believe in myself enough to rework those messages and release myself from the constraints of self-imposed expectations?

To go home this year means to face the reality that I don't fit in. That my concept of belonging and being loved is contingent on being someone other than who I really am. The immediate family is fine, and I can emotionally deal with those dynamics. It's the extended family that hurts me, despite their best intentions to love me.

Sorry for the digression...the holidays aren't exactly the happiest time of the year for me.

'Nuff said.