12:59 a.m. 2006-05-12
The Bitch says: Realizing that she's no different from them, nearly crushed me.
My Aunt came to visit the family. From Saturday through Friday.... She lives in South Carolina and I haven't seen her since I was about 10 years old... But the memories that I had of her were good ones and she had always seemed like a good person, we talked on the phone occasionally and sent me Birthday and Christmas presents every year... And she would sometimes send me something, either money or a present, when she had no reason to.... So, I was looking forward to seeing her.
But on Wednesday I learned that she's no different from my mother and grandmother and the rest of the family... She moved away when she turned 18 to get away from them and start a new life.. She visited a few times and my grandmother and other aunt visited her a couple of times... I went shopping with my aunt, grandmother and mother on Wednesday and found out that despite being so far away from them, from all of us, and living in a city full of diversity and even working for the government and being, what, in my family is considered a "modern woman" (She has an extensive college education, a full-time government job that is often dangerous and decided long ago that she wouldn't have children.. Which is unheard of in my family..) she turned out to be just as ignorant as the rest of them.
I really can't express how disappointed by this realization I am.
And I can't help but wonder how I turned out to be so incredibly different from them... I really have no one in this family that I can relate to, that I look up to. I never have.... My cousin, Christina and I haven't always gotten along and we're very different in many ways, but she's probably the only one that is anything like me in any way. She's not racist or sexist or closed-minded in any way... I may not agree with her on a lot of things, such as the fact that she's a republican, she I admire the fact that, like me and unlike anyone else in this family, she stands up for what she believes in... No matter who disagrees with her.. And if she thinks that something that someone, such as a family member, says is wrong.. She'll say so. And the women in our family simply don't do that.
My family, in many ways, has yet to mentally and emotionally leave the 50s/60s.... The things that they believe and the things that they say, would make you think that instead of moving forward... Time is moving back... That instead of being 2006, it's 1959 or something.
It's sad.
And I can't stand it.
Is the reason that I'm so different, the reason that their beliefs and the things that they think didn't infect me... Because I was in placement for so many years of my life? 6 years, to be exact... I grew up around other races and religions and around gays and lesbians.. Is it because of that that I'm not racist or sexist or homophobic or hate people because of their religious beliefs? If so, why did my mother and her sisters and brother turn out that way? They grew up in Philadelphia.
Is it of the fact that, growing up, my family treated me as if I was so kind of disease, and therefore, I refused to be anything like them?
I go to family dinners and such and people try to stay away from me... They don't talk to me unless I talk to them and even then, it's as little as possible... When I enter a room, they stop talking about whatever it was that they were talking about... Because I'm, as they would say, a "Goddamned Liberal".
I can't stand this family. I need to get away.
I just got a job and I plan on saving up as much money as I can.
