Thursday, May 26, 2011

being an outcast in a blended family

When you have a big family you want to assume that you'll have lots of friends and everyone will be close and happy and laugh at holidays and blah blah blah. That's what I though too when I finally got a big family. I was really wrong. And even though I'm 28 now, I still feel the hurt that comes with being an outcast.

Between my mom's tiny family, my dad's huge family and my inlaws, I have a lot of people in my life. But the thing is? I don't see many of them. Not because they live far away. In fact nearly every person in my family lives no more than thirty minutes away. I can pop by and see them whenever I'd like. But I don't. I don't seek them out, I don't go to a lot of family functions and there is one very big, very sad and very dumb reason for that.

I don't fit in.

I'm not exactly odd. (Okay, I am a bit.) I'm not mean (much), I don't dislike everyone (not everyone) I meet and I can relax and have a good time with people. Really. My friends have seen it happen. But when I'm with my family I still feel like the shy eight-year-old girl who wasn't always a part of the family. My relationship with half of my family stopped developing when I was around fourteen years old and I don't think it's ever going to progress beyond that.

It upsets me sometimes. I want them to see how much fun I can be and I want to have a close relationship with my cousins. Hell, it's all over facebook and I see it every time I log in. But instead I'm alone with my small family and friends. And then I have an amazing day with my cousin, Chrissy, or I laugh until I cry with my adopted family and I remember.. I have a brilliant family.

There are people in my heart I haven't known very long. Some who came into my life and my home on the first day I met them. Some who have been there from my birth, some who I met on a bleacher in gym class and some (a lot of you) who I found at the most random times in my life. And all of those people are really my family. So maybe I'm not an outcast in my family.

Maybe I just fit into my own blended family. And that's where I belong.