Home/Relationships: Pt. II-ish?

Disclaimer:

This post originally started with me just venting. Then it went on to describing the dynamics within my family during our arguments. I apologize for the overall dark tone, but hey, even in the dark...well, you know. If you don't want to read the negative nancy stuff, you can skip to the parts after the asterisks. =p

And now, for a complete reversal of moods....

p=

Sorry, that probably wasn't funny, was it? But seriously...(because I ain't no Regulus...)

(If you can't tell, I like to hide behind my humor)

I hate how sometimes...I hate being here. And I hate that feeling. Of course, there are things I love about this place like its familiarity...and I do love my family...but I would be happy if we could go more than a day without arguing or having someone blow up at someone else. I mean, it's things like this that I feel are the reasons I've never had a very close relationship with my parents and the reasons I feel uncomfortable opening up to them, or rather, the reason I don't want to open up to them. My brother, I love the crap out of him. We fought quite a bit when we were younger, but in the more recent years, especially my later years of high school, we grew a lot closer. Oddly enough, a big reason that we grew closer together was because of our arguments with our parents. We would usually have the other's back when a dispute arose. However, if we felt the other was being dumb/stubborn as we can tend to be, we'd always say so. I dunno why arguments occur so often in our house. I mean, I guess I do, but seriously...they're so unnecessary. As for the why they happen, they're the mix of the growing up in not only different time periods, but completely different cultures altogether. Then there's the fact that we can all be stubborn as heck. And I'm pretty sure we all hate admitting when we're wrong, so arguments can take forever to resolve because neither side gives in. My mom and my brother also have ridiculously short fuses with their emotions. With my dad, it takes more for him to lose his temper, and a great majority of the time it stems from our mom being upset with us. My temper...well it hasn't really been tested in probably three years now...and I don't think any of you have ever seen me angry...but I've never really had any reason to be around you guys. My usual response to my parents' anger is sarcasm...which I suppose, only fuels the fire. I've definitely been called a smart-ass several times and have been told on countless occasions that my mouth was going to get me slapped/punched in the face one day ha. And often, my outward reactions come off as indifferent, so it seems that I don't care about things...but...I dunno. I have trouble with that area.

This probably sounds like I'm bashing my parents huh? I'm really not trying to though. This is just how our family has interacted with one another through the years. And although our mom often has a lot to do with these disputes, I know she has a lot of things going on in life, especially with other family problems and financial stresses, that on top of her already short fuse, do not help things...but it's still tough on the rest of the family, especially my brother, who is so much more sensitive and open about his emotions than I am. I worry about how he and our mom get along during the school year when I'm not there because I know that both of them are easily stressed and both don't hesitate to vocalize their feelings which can be a very volatile combination. But yeah...I think I've been depressing you guys enough already.

Lately, I've been praying to the Holy Spirit, imploring Him(/It?) for the gift of understanding within our family. Because understand one another we do not (Yoda much?). Along with that, I've been praying to Mary that as I grow closer to her and come to know her as a mother, that I may also grow closer to my own mother, to strengthen the bond between us. And along with prayer, this will require a conscious effort for me to do my part, to be a good, obedient, understanding son.

*******

Some quick asides:

I love music. Surprise right? haha. It definitely helped me keep my cool tonight as I had been listening to some praise and worship stuff before the whole spiel happened and then as I was writing this. Otherwise, this might have just been one big rant...oh wait...aha.

One nice thing that did happen tonight...I had a chat on facebook with Liz for the first time in...probably over a year or so haha. Most of our contact over the past year has been through relatively short facebook messages, so it was nice to have an actual (using that term loosely) conversation for the first time in awhile. I mean, I did get to see her in person back in March when we saw Phantom, but that was rather brief and we didn't converse as much as I'd have liked then.

So funny backstory...as all of you know, I spend a ridiculous time on facebook...and also as most of you know, I hardly ever get on chat unless someone needs me to or unless I have something important for school coming up. =p So the main reason I'd stopped using fb chat the last year was because she had stopped using it as well and I never really chatted with anyone else (this was at the beginning of the year). Plus, with the amount of time I'd been spending online anyways, I didn't need more distractions. Lately, I've left it open just because I've been bored quite often here at home and various other reasons, so it was just a nice surprise getting to talk to her again tonight especially since she like never gets on fb chat haha. Which was interesting to have because my parents were definitely trying to have a talk with my brother and I while I was attempting to chat at the same time...but yeah. Dunno why I shared that, but I just felt like I should aha.

**note that this does not imply old feelings resurfacing, just a bit more background on past me and my silliness**

Also, our family is going to a wedding in oh...7 hours. I should probably get to bed now. It's the wedding of my mom's co-worker's daughter. My mom is really good friends with the bride's mother, but the rest of us have met her just like once or twice, and haven't seen any of their family in years...so it should be interesting...but I enjoy weddings at least. Although it'll be interesting to see how this one works out as it sounds like it will be a very small ceremony. Apparently the best men had backed out, and they had to get rid of the bridesmaids...I don't really know all of the details. And I don't think it's a Catholic wedding, so there won't be the rest of the mass being celebrated along with the marriage. But nonetheless, two people giving themselves to one another for life (God willing)...It's hard to find words to properly describe just how amazing that is (I feel like I have a future blog entry running along these lines not too long from now haha).

Anywho, it's 4:42AM...and you are LOVED!

((now Arch-)Bishop Aymond used to say that all of the time =))

-Appletree