I know, long time - no post. Well, I keep forgetting that this is here and is safe from those who have stalked me before. Part whining, part confessional, part getting it out of my system so that the blackness can go away.

Rough week, last week - my grandmother died. Actually she was my step-grandmother. And I knew it - even when I was only eight years old, I knew I didn't belong. No matter what I tried to do or how good I tried to be, I was never good enough. I still tried to love her and my step-grandfather because I so desperately wanted to be in a real family. My mother and father divorced when I was four(this was at the time when divorce and single mothers were NOT looked upon as something that was common). My father remarried a year after the divorce to a Greek woman. I thought it was great because there was a big family to come visit every summer and people who would want to take care of me and miss me when I was gone. Yeah well - stupid kid - you see people once a year, they know nothing about you and what happens to you when you go back home. They have their own lives and you live too far away and with a crazy woman who never lets you on the phone. Anyway, all abuse aside...nobody knew what anybody else did, because I was never with anybody long enough for them to really see me. Even my husband of thirteen years never really saw me.
All I wanted was to belong and be cared for. I think that's all anybody really wants, yes?
I came to this sudden realization after a week with my "so-called" family for her funeral and some of the other must-do activities. What I saw\and heard and felt disgusted me.My vague feelings of discontent and thoughts percolating all these years at the back of my head came hard into focus.
My step-mother treated me the same way her mother treated her (the grandmother that died last week) - never anything that you really wanted unless you saved up your own money to buy it and it could still be taken away, never to return. Clothes that were always unfashionable (boys' Sears & Roebuck jeans with boys plaid shirts) and never fit right. Not being a small chested woman since puberty occurred, being compared to her lack of curves constantly made me feel fat and ugly. I now realize that was a complete lie - okay, I wasn't a great beauty but neither was I hideous. Had someone given me a little guidance, my high school years would have been much more enjoyable. Her mother (grandmother) had done the same thing to her and her sister. Definitely nurture and not nature here - my Aunt is not like this at all! She is loving and caring and has come out swinging lately in my defense.....finally a piece of family. Her daughters, my cousins are also doing the same. Ah, acceptance is so sweet!

So, what brought on these realizations? Seeing my step-mother at work on her family up close and personal as an adult. Utter disbelief at her actions which would have earned me slaps, groundings and loss, she did without compunction. Her mother wasn't even in her grave and the viewing hadn't even occurred when my step-mother was going through the jewelry and giving my aunt crap about who got which pieces! Completely cold, calculating - unfeeling...she was doing this in front of her father as well.Her father who had just lost his wife of 62 years and was preparing to go to her viewing.

Okay more later, this is exhausting.