Life is Complicated

I am blessed and cursed to have a very large collection of family, both immediate and extended that loves me and wants my attention.

On the surface that sounds like a really good thing but the complication comes from a couple sources. Probably the biggest one is that - just because they love me and want my attention does not mean that they love each other and that the world will not implode if they are forced to be in near proximity to each other.

Locally there are 2 groups of people on my husbands side and 4 groups on my side that want our attention every single holiday and most of those cannot be in the same space. And there is simply no way to do 6 christmases or 6 easters. I'm sorry I guess I'm just a selfish bastage and don't wanna put myself through that. So our sort of compromise thus far has been - we pick one group from his side and one from mine and thats that. We try hard to rotate through the holidays so that nobody gets too dissed.

This same issue rears its head anytime my immediate family comes to town, because the afore mentioned 4 sides of my family all immediately begin clamoring for their attention. Its so bad that in the past we've gotten nasty letters after we got back home from relatives who feel they were slighted and didn't receive their allotted portion of our time. It gets old real fast.

I have an aunt (who is married into our family, so when she comes to town who she really wants to see is HER parents) who outraged large portions of the family when she stopped announcing that she was coming into town. She'd just call and say "Hi I'm here. I leave in 2 days. We can get together for one big dinner on either of the two days we've got left" and if you show up good and if you don't too bad. There were all sorts of fits when that started.

Personally I think its brilliant and if my father could be trusted to keep his mouth shut about such a thing (he can't) I'd totally do it next time Mom comes to town because I don't share well. lol.

A second big part of the problem is that some parts of the family are well.... more fun to be around that others. Its harsh but true. There are those you just get along with better. It doesn't mean you don't love the person, it just means that theres only so much drama/abuse a person can stand and therefore we do our duty as family and then we go do whatever the heck we want!

Things in Texas were MUCH easier when I was growing up. It was just the four of us and there was almost NO problems when it came to figuring out holidays cuz well.... it was just the four of us. So one meal, one location, one group. Almost no problems.

Well even Texas has gotten complicated and the last few times I've gone home its stressed me quite a bit. I desperately want to go home and visit but part of me almost doesn't want to go now just b/c I'm so sick of the drama every friggin time I go home.

My sister is a very intense person and a serious planner. She is all about her schedule and control and does not take it well when things do not go according to plan. My parents are cancer survivors. They refuse to get stressed out when life doesn't go according to plan anymore. They just roll with it. This does make them a tad flakey but it keeps their stress level down. Problem is that it keeps my sisters stress level WAY up because she does NOT handle the flake well.

I tend to be more like my folks. I'd rather roll with most things than get stressed out over it. This also stresses my sister out. So the last few times I've been home, when something doesn't go according to plan theres a melt down, and sometimes these plans are made by certain individuals without informing the others that the plans have been made, and the ensuing melt down for disrupted uniformed plans is the same level as the informed plans.

And it gets really, really old. And I don't know what to do about it. But the melt downs need to stop because they rob me of so much of the joy of going home.