Wednesday night at work, and, I have some calls to make

Hi folks, hope your morning is going well :)

Last night at work went well, nothing unusual to report on that front. Buffed the floor, it came out pretty nice, and I was satisfied with the work I did. I'd liked to have worked some freight, but there were enough of the regular stockers there so I wasn't called upon to help. Maybe tomorrow night lol.

I've got to call my mother today, and my dad too, it's a long story, but they don't live in the same house at the moment. Let's just call it a very long process of moving. My dad at the house in Delaware, my mom at the new one in Arizona. She doesn't tolerate the weather in Delaware very well, so she's left Dad up there to clean up the place and get it ready to sell. He's just taking a long time to do it. Over 5 YEARS now, if I remember correctly. It's just that he doesn't want to get rid of anything, and he can't take it all with him to the new house, it's smaller, and plus, my Mom refuses to have the clutter he collected there in Delaware to follow them to Arizona. So, one day when he's finally done hanging on to it, and wants to go ahead and move on, he'll get his butt to Arizona.

Anyway, the reason I mention the fact that I have to call them is because it's a big deal for me. We have never been "close", at least not in the definition most people put to it. We're the type of family that the term "no news is good news" was written for. I don't speak with either my mom or dad very often, only a half a dozen times a year at best, so when it comes time to make a call, it's kind of a big deal. Especially when Mom called me the day after Thanksgiving and left a voicemail asking me to call her. See, she nor Dad ever call me, unless something bad happened. It's always me calling them first. Like last time I heard from Dad, it was for him to tell me that my Uncle Eugene had died. This was a man I never met, but since he was family, Dad thought it was important to tell me he had died. I was glad he did, because I had really wanted to meet him, and his family, and Dad told me all kinds of things about them, and what went on at the funeral, and it was good, it was nice to talk to him for a while. Dad and Eugene had a falling out years ago, which is why I never had a chance to meet him, but it seems most of the issue was with his wife, she for some reason didn't like my parents, and so they never spoke, for years. Apparently after they divorced several years back, Eugene started having regular contact with Dad again, and things got better. Right before he died, Dad told me he went to visit him in the hospital, and they cleared the air so to speak, and reconciled, so Dad had a sense of completion and was ok when his brother passed a few days later.

But back to my original point. My parents and I have not spoken much since I left home, and I doubt we ever will be "close", and I wonder sometimes if maybe I am partially to blame for it. I don't go out of my way to call, or email, or even message them on Facebook, which would be extraordinarily easy. I think in a lot of ways it's because I don't WANT them to know what I'm doing. And beyond that, I feel weird talking to my parents to be honest. It's like they aren't really my parents. I never felt like I got the love and affection I saw other children getting from their mothers, and while my father and I got along well, and he taught me a lot, there was a side to him that I tried very hard to stay away from, and that was his "angry" side. If he was tired, or Mom was on his case, or worse, if she told him about something we kids did wrong, well, he became a monster, got very angry, and I feared for my life on more than one occasion. We got spanked a lot, knocked around, and just generally made to feel like we had just done the worst possible sin on the planet. For me, it was sheer terror, and for much of my childhood, I walked on eggshells around both he and Mom, for fear of what they'd get angry about next. Mom basically thought I didn't do anything right. She actually told me one time that I was breathing wrong. I mean really? Breathing wrong? But that's how bad it was. She was always on me about something, my grades not being straight A's, the way I walked, the way I talked, why didn't I do this, go do that, it was constant, and she never seemed to be happy with the results of anything I did. Nothing was good enough, I could never live up to her standards, so it will come as no surprise then that even now I don't like to discuss my life with her, or Dad.

Parents are supposed to be supportive of their children, not be their taskmasters. I've learned this since I left home. Because while I was there, the only thing that it seemed to me that people had children for was to do all the chores around the house, and basically to have someone they can boss around. THAT was the relationship I had with MY parents. Now that I am an adult, and after a period of being bitter against them when I first left home, I realized a lot of my problem was in the way I reacted to what they did. Sure, they were not supportive, or should I say, they were not supportive in the way I would have liked for them to be, but they did the best they could with what they had, and I was never in a position to be wanting for anything. There WERE lots of good times, some happy memories, but for the most part, my mind has had a tendency to remember the bad stuff, like that was the only thing that happened. Sure, my parents weren't perfect, I was not always happy, but who is? Maybe, just maybe, they WERE supportive, and I just didn't see it, because I was too busy wallowing in self pity because I didn't get the support the way "I" wished to receive it.

So, it's time to forget the past, I need to get in touch with them, and speak to them more often. Besides, if history is any indication, they don't have a lot of time left. My family (on either side) is not known for their longevity, most don't make it past their 70's, and both of my parents are well into their 60's. So if I don't start having a better relationship with them now, I may never get the chance. I always joke that I'm middle aged for my family, I'm going to be 40 next year, so actually I may be a little older than that even lol.

To sum this all up folks, today I intend to talk to both Mom AND Dad, and then start making it a regular habit, if for nothing else to just start communicating more. We can't have a relationship if we don't communicate. Wish me luck, thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you soon :)