Feeling Like a Louse (if you don’t know look up louse in the dictionary)

I have family all around me.  2 per bedroom, several out in the living room…. any one more and we’d be putting people under the dining room table, in the bathtub, or in the kitchen.  There isn’t a single place to sit available in the apartment at any given time.  I couldn’t be happier… sadder, and more lonely all at the same time.

I suppose I should explain myself with that last statement, since it seems highly contradictory in and of itself unless you understand the situations involved.  You see I love having the majority of my family around (not all for a few reasons) and miss it when they aren’t here.  We are scattered over the state I live in , and so as a general we only have a get together once, maybe twice a year…. and even then I’m only talking the IMMEDIATE family.  So as you can guess I like to spend time with people when I can and play catch up.

Now this also saddens me because there are family members I don’t feel that I can trust or relax around (again for various reasons), and worse it reminds me of the fact that:

1. We do live so far apart unlike how we used to live.
2. That I really don’t talk with them and for the most part they talk AT me instead TO me.
3. It’s a constant reminder of how different from everyone else in my family I am both for better and worse.

My older sister, who I won’t name and won’t state too much about here, for lack of a better term that lacks negative stereotypes to the best of my knowledge has “gone country'”.  While she doesn’t own a farm or anything like that, she is very into country music, tries to follow what you might call more “backwoods” remedies, and her general approach to life is a step our two beyond what most would think of as the country “laid back” attitude.

My younger sister on the other hand almost couldn’t be more different, and yet is in her way similar to my older sister.  Her world is one of the internet, and a few friends she has up where she lives.  She is very much the person who spends as much time as she can or at least used too (as I can no longer say just exactly how she spends her time) on the internet, in chartrooms, watching videos, and looking at sites like Icanhascheezburger and Deviant Art.  Don’t get me wrong some of what she finds is completely awesome… however at the same time I don’t understand how live that particular way.

I’m somewhere between the two I suppose and am my own person at the same time.  I love them all, including in a way my brother in-laws.  I am happier when they are around because there is the shared bond of family present.  I am .. also uncomfortable due to my general over all lack of things to share that would be an interest to them.

And then… they also make me lonely.  When they are around they don’t come to visit me, they come to visit my Mother, with whom I live thanks to the economy.  In fact I am relatively sure that if I was living on my own I would be invited to visit during their stay, however I wouldn’t be visited myself.  I am not the person that they come to see, I am not the person that they ever seek out to talk to, am I am not the person that they look at and smile.

While I will bend over backwards attempting to help them and have frequently lost money in helping them I am the secondary thought to their visits.  I do my best to make sure that they all have an enjoyable visit, I clean the house, I make much of the food, and keep track to ensure everyone has presents.  In return, frequently I get brief moments where I’m talked with, where we laugh and enjoy, and then I’m sequestered back to my room so I don’t have Nieces and Nephews (whom I do play with) attempting to use me as a jungle gym, and so I have a place to sit down.  I am reminded of how truly alone I am since they have their families, and I lack anything resembling one myself.

Finally there is my cast.  I feel terrible any day that I fail to cast for everyone.  I feel that I have made a promise to cast at the hours I have posted and to do my part to help keep everyone entertained, after all that is the part of the deal a partner provides for their viewers.  While they are here, there is no way that I COULD cast and have it be of any quality.  Imagine if you will a caster who every 5 or 10 minuets has to get up and take care of one thing or another for 5 or 10… sometimes 20 or 30 minuets.  The cast would be at best of low quality, and far more likely would be abysmal.  I won’t do it … my pride as someone who provides a serves prevents me from giving a cast my best.

So there you have it in a nut shell.  My family is in a way the life… and death of me.