anytime, i get together with my family i feel like a failure.
and that's not a knock on them
i love them. & not just cause i have to.
(ok, sometimes only because i have to, as we start to get away from the blood relatives.)
let me put it this way...
i have two older sisters.
and they are both...
a.) married.
b.) mothers to beautiful children.
c.) have degrees from College they no longer use/need/care about.
d.) more fashionable that me.
e.) held in higher regard than me in the eyes of my family.
f.) all of the above.
i guess i've sorta become this odd running joke for the members of my family.
the smart-aleck brother who smokes to much weed.
the lazy cousin who left school to join a band.
the foul-mouthed son who only calls when he needs money.
the tallest member of a family of midgets. (that's only on the italian side though)
so am i surprised when no one shows any faith in me?
no necessarily, most of those accusations have merit.
that's not really the issue...
i know i'm not the only pothead in my family.
i know cause some of them taught ME how to do it.
and i guarantee i'm not the laziest one in the family.
(you should see us on thanksgiving)
it's a blindly-judgmental hypocrisy to make me the target of my families collective ridicule, especially when most of the skeletons in my closet would run & hide if they knew what may be lurking behind the closed doors in some of my families homes.
maybe that's the key to family though.
the only people who really give it to us straight.
the people who aren't afraid to call us out on the carpet for our failings under the guise of love & support.
and no matter what we do, we can never really escape.
no matter where we go, it's never far enough.
no matter how far away we run, sometimes, we just have to come back.
because we love them for who they are.
because we hate them for what they make us see in ourselves
because we spend our lives outrunning there shadows
even as the shadows grow longer at sunset.
they are the only people we can't hide from.
"i can't hide chu' here!"
I says Baron, I can't hide chu'from your relatives!
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