Saturday, November 13, 2010
God Help Me If Any Family Members Find This Post
11:10 p.m. / 23:10
I'm supposed to go see my grandparents tomorrow evening. That's not a big deal; I love my grandparents. It's just that one of my uncles and then one of my cousins recently moved in with them. The uncle is fresh out of prison. I'm not sure about the details; it may have been a really minimum security situation the past year or so. I'm not really sure what he was in for either. He's been in and out of prison most of my life so I guess it's habit not to tell me much about it since I was a little kid when he started getting in serious trouble. I think was usually drug related but that's as much as I know.
I don't want to see him. Mostly it's the awkwardness of seeing an uncle I was never close to and haven't seen since high school... I think. See, I can't even remember for sure when I saw him last but I think I was about 17 so that would have been well over ten years ago. I told someone earlier today that it's not that I'm angry with him. Later I admitted to myself that sometimes I'm a little angry with him because of how his behavior has affected his kids. Now... maybe I'm just cranky because it's getting late and I got up early and went to work today but... yeah, okay, I'm kind of angry with him. I'm not 100% sure why. Maybe it's just hard not to be a little upset with someone who's messed up so big so many times. Maybe it's because of what he's put my grandparents through. Maybe it's his kids... they're young adults now and I think they really believe it will be different this time. God, I hope it is different this time but there's so much room for doubt. I've heard about his plan for his new life. It's not a bad plan but from the sound of things he has no idea what it's really going to take to get there.
Is it really fair of me, though? Is it fair to be this judgmental when I haven't even seen the guy and said welcome home, welcome back to life? Maybe it feels wrong because he's my uncle, he's older... no one ever told me to look up to him but I wasn't taught to disrespect him either. I have this memory of him trying to teach me to tie my shoes and I always wonder why he couldn't always be like that. He's really not all bad. I don't even think he's stupid. It's more than a little possible he has an astounding lack of common sense and I have heard him called stupid more than once but it's probably not quite accurate.
Alright, I'm winding down, emotionally. I think I had better stop here.
