More grateful than resentful in Flaming June

But it’s strange, this resurgence of negative feelings and memories of my parents from my childhood. Actually, not so much childhood. My teenage years, which were a disaster in many ways. I thought I’d put it all to bed, I thought I’d discovered an emotionally intelligent(isn) path through the long grass of family relationships.
But there I am, at a family wedding (nephew) in conversation with my sister, and my emotionally intelligent place markers are blown away in the wind.
She seems happy. Happier than me. Years ago she started to distance herself from both my parents, and after my Dad died, she then cut my mother off completely. Untold grief and misery ensued. Broken bits of my mum all over the floor, which Surfer and I have been picking up.
And now she seems happy. Why wouldn’t she be? She’s not the one living next door to her ageing mother, dealing with these tapestries of depression, picked out in red and orange threads of narcissism and passive-agression. “So you’re happy, Lorin” I want to say. “Good for you. You got out and protected yourself”
I wish I could do the same. Not the emotionally smart move though?
Actually, maybe it is.
I tell myself I’ve got so much more to be grateful about, than resentful. I’m far too old for whiny resentment. 10% of life is the hand you get dealt, and 90% is how you play it, no?
But telling yourself isn’t the same as believing it.

Last updated June 06, 2015