![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arguchikgot some moderately bad news about my parents today. just evidence that they are getting old, that we're going to have to make difficult choices, possibly over their objections, in the not too distant future. it's hard to deal with and makes me feel guilty because i'm not there. makes me doubt some of the choices i have made in my life. not to the point of thinking i should change my course or that i should have done anything differently...i guess it just brings home the costs of the choices i have made, costs i was very much aware of and consciously decided to incur when i made those choices. the choice to live far away from them, the choice to pursue my current career path, etc. knowing they were getting up there...knowing i would have limited resources and time to travel back for visits, while in grad school... but you can't live for your parents. you move out, you leave. that's the way life goes.
and i wonder why it gets to me so much. there has been a lot of strife between my parents and me, and while my feelings cooled off considerably several years ago, they did so not because the situation was rectified in any way, but because i decided to let go of my desire for a better relationship with them, and my disappointment that they weren't the parents i needed them to be. i had to let go--it had only made me feel angry and resentful toward them, and self-recriminating, inadequate, guilty toward myself. no good. my feelings are complex. my family was so dysfunctional, and it's difficult not to recognize the parts my parents (and their religion) played in that. but sometimes i cry when i look at pictures of their younger selves. they had no idea what they were in for, how hard it would be parenting 5 kids, how little energy they would have left for their own dreams, how conflicted their feelings would be toward their children. love, resentment, pride, frustration, fear/worry, hope, anger, and disappointment, all rolled up together. and how could they possibly fulfill all of our emotional needs, or be the ideal parents to 5 very different individuals? then again, why did they have 5 kids to begin with? (as the youngest i can't help being glad they did, even while i realize i may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, through no fault of my own.)
we expect a lot of our parents. and they expect a lot of us. nobody comes away from that level of expectation without some degree of disappointment. even people in happy families, i have to imagine. are there happy families? how did they get that way?
and i wonder why it gets to me so much. there has been a lot of strife between my parents and me, and while my feelings cooled off considerably several years ago, they did so not because the situation was rectified in any way, but because i decided to let go of my desire for a better relationship with them, and my disappointment that they weren't the parents i needed them to be. i had to let go--it had only made me feel angry and resentful toward them, and self-recriminating, inadequate, guilty toward myself. no good. my feelings are complex. my family was so dysfunctional, and it's difficult not to recognize the parts my parents (and their religion) played in that. but sometimes i cry when i look at pictures of their younger selves. they had no idea what they were in for, how hard it would be parenting 5 kids, how little energy they would have left for their own dreams, how conflicted their feelings would be toward their children. love, resentment, pride, frustration, fear/worry, hope, anger, and disappointment, all rolled up together. and how could they possibly fulfill all of our emotional needs, or be the ideal parents to 5 very different individuals? then again, why did they have 5 kids to begin with? (as the youngest i can't help being glad they did, even while i realize i may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, through no fault of my own.)
we expect a lot of our parents. and they expect a lot of us. nobody comes away from that level of expectation without some degree of disappointment. even people in happy families, i have to imagine. are there happy families? how did they get that way?
