I Wrestle

This morning, I was up early checking email, and found myself looking through some documents to send someone a copy of my Social Security card.  Don't worry, it wasn't a scam artist!  While trying to find my card, I went through a slender file that holds many important identifying papers.  I didn't find the card, but instead I found an email, dated 2005, from an aunt.  I had not forgotten about the email, but I had forgotten I kept it.

I took a few moments to read it, it stung, and the wound is reopen and the guilt is fresh again.  She ended our relationship with that email, and in doing so, the domino effect touched so many others on my mom's side of the family.  You know, when the matriarch decides you're out, even when she doesn't tell anyone else--that was a promise she made--it subtly touches every other family member.  It left me floundering.  I immediately, of course, was no longer invited to her home.  Though she came to my wedding shower and ceremony, it was awkward, and I found myself pulling away from my cousins because it's just too hard to know about their lives without knowing them any longer. 

My other aunt, who read at my wedding, has pulled away, and now my wedding album is a reminder of this fractured family.  Two of my uncles did not come to my wedding.  One, who was a dad to me after my own dad died, did not come.  From him, I didn't get a card or a note, only a well wish after I sent him a few snapshots of the day.  I felt his absence.

I guess it still hurts because my eyes leak as I write this.

I'm not blaming her, her decision and the events that have or haven't transpired because of that decision, was my fault. She wrote that I said hurtful things.  Apparently I did so often and over many years.  And though my tongue can be sharp, I truly and callously didn't realize the damage I was doing.

But I did it. It's done. I attempted to repair it, I apologized and meant it, I won't tell that story as it leaves me grasping and my heart hurting.

Since then, I have married, and my husband's family has chosen to not like me.  In moments like this, I think, "Well, no wonder, so much of my own family doesn't."  And it all makes sense. 

But then I am bewildered.  I work with people who know me so well, really so incredibly well.  They are my friends.  They share my ups and downs.  They come to my home, they celebrate with me, they are quality people.  They are important to me.  They know me, warts and all, and they are incredibly loyal and true. And I, losing humility here for a moment, am the same to them. I am a good friend.

It is true, not everyone will like me.  That's been proven, but the who and the whys still stymy me.