That Old Saying

I am once again reminded of that saying "You can choose your friends but you can't choose you family". You hear it every once in awhile but you only really listen when it hits home. I spent the long weekend visiting my sisters and their family deep in the heart of Texas, I go every couple or so years. O.K, I admit it, I'm bad, it's been at least 4-5 years I think since the last time I went there. There is a reason, I value my vacation time, I work hard all year for the two measly weeks I get and I'll be damn if I'm going to waste 3 days of it reminded of that saying from above.

I am sadden from my trek and the hardest part is knowing that there is nothing I could have done to make the visit better. I find it interesting how us three sisters have taken different roads, the choices we made and how we deal with what life has given us. In that old Nature Vs. Nurture debate I think it's 50/50. We all lived the same lives, sort of, we had the same childhood experiences at least. There are some reasons for how and where we ended up but I will not allow it to dictate our lives. One sister is defensive and always has been, you cannot have a conversation with her and if you try to pick a topic she sees that as criticizing. While she seems to have a loving husband she has a couple kids with some issues and are a handful, I think a gentle hand and soft voice would go along way in that household. The other sister has a medical illness that makes her life somewhat hard, throw in a husband that never says much and has no compassion and you get depression. Her two kids are great, the son is still quiet lovable but idolizes his father and runs the chance of learning no compassion from him, and so far the little girl, well she looks like the spitting image of her mother at that age and knows nothing is askew.

I wish I could fix them, I wish I could win the lottery and make their lives easier. Nothing will help them if they don't see that something is broken.

We choose the lives we live to a certain degree and the rest is all perspective, is the glass half full or half empty?

Back to the knitting another day. I forgot that one of the reasons I had this blog was so that I no longer had to talk to myself in my head and that writing things down releases them and allows for contemplation and solutions.