Some families are close. Some families grow apart over time, and then reunite. Some families drift apart through a form of entropy. Others drift apart by design.
My family has been drifting apart of a number of years and the biggest reason why is that both my younger brother and I have an absolute disinterest in participating in the varied schemes created by my older brother’s wife. Horrible human being. Always has been, always will be. Her daughters (my nieces) have, through the machinations of all involved, absolutely no idea who my father (their grand father) is, much less have any inkling as to who I am or who my younger brother is. Of course they know we exist, but they have not had much contact with us short of a few occasions when they were younger. For the last four or five years, we’ve had very little communication with them. There is plenty of fault to be had for all involved, and no one side is more responsible than the other. Though…
Because my older brother blames my father for every mistake he himself has made, he has pretty much written my father off. To a certain extent, the situation exists because of how my father has favored one of his sons over the others. Lest you think I am the favored son, let me clear that up… I’m not. The difference between my older brother and I is simply that I don’t really give a flying fuck whether or not my dad played favorites. Whether my dad played favorites really has no bearing on whether or not I made good choices. Ultimately, everything bad thing that has happened to me up to this moment in time is 100% my own fault. But in taking responsibility for my many mistakes, I can take sole responsibility for my many successes. The neat part of being a rational, well-adjusted adult is that both the good and bad are 100% my doing.
Blaming my father for his own inadequacy is easy to do, which is why my older brother probably does it. He’s never really been all that interested in overcoming or adapting. He has always been more interested in what he can get with as little effort expended as possible and this is just his way of laying blame at the feet of my father who is at this point an easy target.
It should piss me off… but it doesn’t. It just reminds me why families are over rated. I think the burying beetle has the whole parenting thing correct. Life would be so much easier if parents just simply ate the weakest offspring shortly after giving birth.
