After 12 years in Tennessee, I’ve gotten pretty used to not seeing my family on holidays. I’m lucky in that even before Ian and I started dating, his mom had a standing invitation open for me and all his other “orphan” friends for Thanksgiving or Christmas. And my other friends’ homes were always open, too. I’ve never had to spend a holiday alone because of work or school obligations that prevented me from taking the several days I’d need to drive to Chicago and back.
But for the last four years, I’ve been lucky enough to work someplace that allows us time off at the holidays. For the last four years, logistically I could have gone back to visit my family in Chicago.
But emotionally, I couldn’t. I couldn’t go back there and smile through the pain and pretend that I wasn’t resenting having to exchange pleasantries with my crazy, abusive father just so I could spend time with my mother and sisters. And risk more emotional abuse.
Despite the fact that I don’t speak to my father anymore, my mother is still married to him. My youngest sister still lives in the house and my middle sister lives close and still visits. And though I have their support and understanding, I’m pretty much on my own. Especially at the holidays.
Last year my middle sister Katie and I made plans for her and her now-fiance to come spend Christmas with Ian and I, but she has changed her mind. I guess I can’t blame her, but I had really been looking forward to having someone from my side of the family with me at Christmas this year. (Although I could have done without her telling me they couldn’t afford it and then later admitting they were going to buy a new couch.)
My hope is that one day Ian and I will be able to spend Christmas with my mom and two sisters. It would be nice to be able to go to Chicago so we could experience a true white Christmas, but I’d be happy for the three of them to come here, too.
I just don’t know that it will ever happen. And that makes me sad.
Browse Timeline
Comments ( 4 )
I’d like to address what you wrote:
1. I moved close (25 minutes away) not for the intention to run home every weekend and visit dad. You of all people should know that I share your feelings for dad, and you make it look like I sweep that under the rug. You left the state for college. I didn’t have that same opportunity. And I moved to Wheeling because Junnhi worked in Northbrook at the time and I worked in Arlington Heights, now in Lake Bluff. Wheeling was right in the middle.
2. We talked about visiting last year, and in a year a lot changes. First, Junnhi and I got engaged. So to pay for our wedding, he got a second job. So it’s not that we said we would come and bought a fucking couch instead. It is that he has to work around the holidays, and can’t get the time off. I told you that, and now you paint this picture like we value a couch more than spending time with you. That’s bullshit, and hurtful.
3. You are not the only one who is displaced because of dad. When I go over the the house, it’s when he’s not there so I don’t have to deal with him. On occasion when he is there, and I deal with it because I want to see mom and Em. You are not the only one who has been hurt by him, so don’t act like I go over there to see him and think everything that happened to us when we were little is fine.
4. I am on your side, and always have been. And I’m sorry that we couldn’t make it for Christmas. I would much rather be spending it with you, but it’s not because we bought a couch, and now can’t afford it. We have jobs, responsibilities here too, and it’s not fair for you to call us out like that and make us look like materialistic idiots.
Merry Christmas.
Katie added these pithy words on
Dec 21 09 at
12:41 pm
I didn’t mean you bought the couch instead of coming to see me, I meant that you said you couldn’t come because it was too expensive. Which obviously wasn’t true since you could afford a couch. I don’t remember you telling me that you had to work over Christmas, so I apologize. I do remember telling you about cheap Southwest flights and you saying you couldn’t afford it.
I don’t think I painted this to look like I’m the only one who is hurt. But this is my blog so I discuss my feelings here, not yours or anyone else’s.
I think you are taking this entry too personally and making it all about you, which it’s not. All I’m saying is that it sucks that because dad is a crazy asshole I don’t get to see my family at Christmas. I would think you of all people would recognize that, but unfortunately all you are seeing is an attack on you, which it is not.
Megan added these pithy words on
Dec 21 09 at
12:48 pm
I know you sharing how you feel, but when you write things like “my middle sister lives close and still visits” that sounds like, to me, that I chose to live close so that I could still visit him. Which is ridiculous.
I don’t want to argue about this. I promise that we will come visit you at some point. I can’t say when, but it will happen, even if we buy 2 couches.
Katie added these pithy words on
Dec 21 09 at
2:26 pm
Well, I don’t see how saying that 1. you live close and 2. you still visit, both of which are true, infers in any way that you live close BECAUSE you want to still visit dad. I didn’t say that nor did I mean that, and again you’re reading too much into it.
But I don’t want to argue either, especially about that point when that wasn’t even what I was sad about in the first place, because the only one who wins here is dad, seeing that he is making us argue again like he did when we were kids. (He visits this blog, FYI, according to my IP tracking/stat counting software.)
Megan added these pithy words on
Dec 21 09 at
2:41 pm
