Happy Effing Holiday

I can't help but allow the holidays to make me a little bit maudlin this year. It was inevitable. I had a rough year, and I knew it would only get worse around this time, when not only are the days colder, darker, and shorter, but also there is all of this forced sincerity in the air, the idea that we are supposed to be thankful. I am thankful, of course, but I don't need to be reminded to be thankful. I have a slightly harder time being thankful, however, when I feel like I am trying harder than someone else is. This Christmas is the hardest one I have been through since I was thirteen, eight months after my mother died. The difference between that one and this one is, of course, I can still call my ex-husband to wish him Merry Christmas, which I could not do with my mother, and also when I was thirteen, my parents overcompensated for all of that grief by giving my sister and I far too many presents to open with our sad little hands. This year, my parents got me a really weird-looking nutcracker/Santa Claus and a book on how to knit fruit.
I have this feeling, every once in a while, that my parents are spread too thin. There are seven children between them, counting my two half-siblings and my three step-siblings, my sister and I, and sometimes, I just don't feel like they have enough time, love, and energy to go around. Someone always gets pushed to the front, in terms of who they are thinking about and trying to help, and so someone inevitably gets pushed to the back. Right now, even though I am having a hard time and going through a divorce, I feel like I am getting pushed to the back. I don't depend on my parents for anything, because even though I do need help, I know it is wrong to ask it of them. My father offered to help me out with some bills I was having trouble paying, but they ended up not being financially able right now, and I felt guilty even accepting it when he offered. My sister needs a little more than me, and has a hard time making everything work for herself at all times, that they sometimes just don't have it in them. The heart is not capable of producing that much love, because my sister seems to need more no matter how much they give. I have lost my temper with my sister a number of times over this, because even with all they have done for her, she still finds a way to demonize my stepmother, imply that Debbie has not done enough for her. On Thanksgiving, I lost my shit on her for saying something immature about one of our other siblings, and pretended my anger was solely about that, but what I really wanted to say was, "They have spent every ounce of their energy on you, and you still want more? Give me a fucking break!"
Anyone with a sibling who is constantly in peril, or has severe medical or mental issues, or suffers from addiction knows what I am getting at. You care, you worry for them, and sometimes you get frustrated with them for not being able to just fucking take care of their own self. The anger can also extend to your parents, for their constant devotion to them. It is a form of jealousy that is ingrained into most of us, and it doesn't end when we become grown-ups. I wish I was above it, that I did not need my parents for anything and could just give them a break for once, but I am not that solitary of a person. I don't need their support financially, as I have found a way to make it work, but I do need their support emotionally. I have found myself almost having to remind my father that everything I have been through this year, with breaking up with Gino and starting over on my own, is really hard. He has been through two divorces, both of them far more acrimonious than mine, but he has moved past them, and occasionally, he just doesn't seem to get why I am sad, not angry. Explaining to your father that you miss someone he never really thought of as anything special, or good enough for his daughter, is a fool's errand. He was stupid in love with my mother and was devastated over their divorce, but he doesn't remember that now, because it probably hurts too much. He has Debbie now, and that is all that matters to him, so the pain of the past doesn't make sense in his mind.
I love my parents, but every once in a while, I have a hard time thinking like them. There are things from the past, that they did, that I try not to ever think about, because I just end up getting pissed off and thinking that now would be a really great time to demand an apology from them. It's a stupid thought, not to mention hypocritical, because I am always preaching about how important it is to let go of grudges and not suffer the past, but when I am in just the right frame of mind, my parent's past behavior can really get under my skin. There was the time, when I was fourteen, that my therapist called them in for a family meeting to tell them how much it would help me to get a companion animal as a therapeutic device, because I was so depressed and anxious. My parents were opposed to the idea, naturally, and they called my therapist later that night to scream at her for ganging up on them. They also accused me of engineering the meeting, of conning my therapist into making the argument that I couldn't make myself. I try not to bring things like that up with them because to this day, I cannot argue with my parents. It is best to just move on, carry the fact that they have been jerks a few times with me and never try to get an apology from them because they can justify doing just about anything.
I realize, of course, in my ruminations about the past, that I have been even more of a jerk to both of them. The difference is, I have apologized a million times over for, say, being a cutter, or just for being so depressed as a teenager. I still feel guilty for this, for being such a hard child to raise, and I let them know how sorry I still am just about every time I think about it. They never demanded an apology, but I thought they could use one, plus an additional expression of my gratitude just to make it stick. The years of terror I put them through because of my emotional problems when I was younger will never go away for them, no matter how much they tell me they don't even think about it.
My parents love me, and they did a fine job of raising me, but being the youngest out of so many children I did feel like I was made to pay the price for the mistakes my older siblings made. I was certainly treated with more caution, with more limitations on what I could and could not do in direct relation to how much my sister acted out. My sister drank and smoked and was kind of promiscuous- all of her rebelling was big and showy. My rebelling was quiet, barely detectable. I took out all of my anger on myself. I did feel, due to how much trouble my sister, and my stepsister, got into before I even had the inclination to do so, that there was a general atmosphere of mistrust permeating my entire home. I only remember telling one big lie, when I was maybe thirteen or fourteen, and once I realized I was caught I told the truth. My sister snuck out to be with her boyfriend and told me to lie to our parents about where she was, and when my dad figured it out, I told them the truth, even though I was getting myself and Sarah into trouble. I remember Debbie's response, even after I told her everything, as, "I still don't believe you."
My stepmother had been through so much abuse, first from her own daughter and then from my sister, that her response to anything I told her was that she didn't believe me. She raised one wild girl, who snuck out in the middle of the night and ended up getting into a terrible car accident, and then got stuck with another wild girl who hid vodka in her room. It was a learned pattern of behavior, but it had nothing to do with me, and I can't say it was easy to live with.There has really only been one time that I have confronted my father about this as an adult, and it went nowhere. He was visiting for my parent's annual summertime breeze-though, where they see as much family as they can cram into a week, plus go to Tanglewood. We were having an iced coffee at Dunkin' Donuts (hazelnut-flavored iced coffee being something my father only enjoyed up North because down south, they have no flavored coffee, only flavor shots). I was trying to explain something to him, about how hard it was being raised in a home where it was assumed, before I had even done anything, that I was always lying. "But when you have had that experience," my father said, "Of getting a phone call from the police in the middle of the night that your daughter is near death, you want to prevent it from happening again."
"But, Daddy," I said, trying to be as gentle and casual about it as I could, "Jenny's actions had nothing to do with me. Neither did Sarah's, but I somehow ended up paying for both of them."
"Yeah, because when you have had that experience," he said, putting even more emphasis on the word, "You learn that you can't trust, you can't leave it up to chance."
"Yes, and I understand where she was coming from, but couldn't she, or you even, have given me the benefit of the doubt?" I asked.
My dad started doing that Italian-American thing where his hands just fly all over the place because he is not making his point clear. "No, no, there was no benefit of the doubt to give, for her," he said, "And when you have lived through that experience of getting a call in the middle of the night that your daughter-"
"Okay, okay, I get it," I said, cutting him off, because I knew I would never get him to see things from my perspective.
Even if you really love someone, the way I love my parents, you occasionally want to give them the finger. I know my parents have also wanted to tell me to fuck off plenty of times, even if they deny it, because I have too much self-awareness to think I was a perfect child. I did the best I could, though, given the circumstances. They also did the best they could, and none of us are perfect. I am thankful, and I appreciate everything they do for me, but I wish I didn't feel like I have to work so hard to remind them that I am here, and that sometimes, I need them. I am glad that Christmas is over, and that my aunt and uncle actually got me gifts I can use, like a memory foam pad for my mattress because I mentioned that my bedsprings were poking me. They have limitless amounts of love, because they have no children. They can remember a tiny thing like that, which means so much to me because I know it means they paid attention to something I said. My parents can't remember half of what I tell them, because they have to keep track of the comings and goings of six other people in our immediate, blended family. I kind of haven't gotten over the murdery-looking nutcracker that they sent me, though.