A Confession of Sorts

I have a confession to make. I guess I’m kind of hoping that if I speak this out loud, it will help me let go and not continue to feel this way.

I am so jealous of people who have large, loving families that hang out together, vacation together, and just do life along side eachother.

Yes, I just got back from a big family gathering in Southern California and I am so incredibly blessed to have amazing aunts and uncles and cousins. My grandparents, my dad‘s parents, who have since passed years ago, raised five pretty incredible kids who have gone on to have families of their own and I truly feel so fortunate to be a part of that Casler clan.

However, I didn’t grow up close to any of them so besides a holiday visit or a summer vacation here and there I never spent much time with them.

My own family, mom, dad and little sister, lived remotely in North Idaho for the first 12 years of my life. Then my mom decided to move to Missouri and I followed less than a year later. 

Now in adulthood, I made the hard choice about 6 years ago to set boundaries and ultimately distance myself from my mom, due to her mental illness and unwillingness to seek counsel.

I feel closer to one of my cousins who lives in San Diego than I do with my own sister. This recent trip down there for my dad’s memorial really had me pondering things.

My girls are about the same distance apart in age as my little sister and I. They get along great. They enjoy each other. They support and encourage each other. They borrow each other‘s clothes, share shoes, stay up late visiting. I don’t remember my sister and I ever doing that. 

Into adulthood, our relationship remained distant. When I gave my life to the Lord, I had high hopes that that would reignite a closeness between us, but after we both got married and had kids, things seemed to become even more strained. She didn’t want to spend time with me and my family and in hindsight, I don’t blame her. 

In my 20’s and even into my early 30’s, I had a lot of unprocessed anger and grief from childhood trauma that would rear its ugly head by way of explosive outbursts when things didn’t go my way (basically when I felt unloved or unwanted, it would trigger responses in me that I’m definitely not proud of.)

But when I became aware of what was happening, and realized that I had the power to change, I did the work. I went to therapy, did EMDR, read books, listened to podcasts, talked to other people who had been through similar struggles. I healed. And it has been an amazing transformation that I am so incredibly thankful for.

But it didn’t seem to change anything with my family. My mom still carries the victim mentality and takes little to no responsibility for her role in our family’s dysfunction. My sister still seems to have little to no desire to spend time with me and my family or develop a friendship in adulthood. I feel sad whenever I see people touting their sisterly relationships on social media. And I feel jealous when I see extended families gathering together and enjoying life.

I want that. I know I’m creating that in my own family. I have high hopes that my kids will still be friends into adulthood and that they will still want to spend time with me. I regularly envision and pray for that closeness for my children that I didn’t have myself as a daughter and sister. I would love your prayers as well if you feel led. It also helps to know we are not alone, so if you have had similar struggles and feel like sharing, I’m always open to comments.