Instead of doing my usual nothingness, I chose to go downstairs and peruse old pictures from family scrapbooks. It brought to mind how blessed I have been and even though my family has been cracked, broken, and pieced back together, our parents did the best they could. I have two brothers, two sisters, a stepbrother and stepsister, along with two half-brothers that are almost three years old. Both parents re-married and my dad's wife brought in her two kids and my mom had twins later on with her husband. I was the second oldest of them all and was in 8th grade at the time. Complicated was an understatement for our family. Yet, while flipping through pages of pictures, I saw smile upon smile of happy, silly, goofy kids. Venyce (my stepmom) looked over and said "that's a nice picture of you and Brooke", and I thought yeah but I hated her at the time. I was too young to understand the trials and tribulations my parents went through and I was not able to comprehend many situations in a logical mature manner because I was a teenager! I see so many young adults now and it scares me, it scares me to have kids because I do not want to be treated the way many parents are, like stupid dirt that is thrown and manipulated to whatever shape they want.
I guess all I wanted to say is love and appreciate your parents and do not take them for granted. The day will come when you find out who your true friends are and your family will still be standing at the doorway waiting. But family relationships are not easy to uphold, you need to put your heart into each and every one. Just communicate and be honest. As a teenager, we are supposed to rebel a little and get grounded a few times, thats normal, but remeber everything you do follows you into adulthood>>> good and bad habits. I might feel so strongly about this issue because I moved away for college to a completely new world. No family was nearby and distance truly made my heart grow fonder for my siblings. I remember crying one day because I had called to talk to a sister (Anna) but she was too busy hanging out with high school friends, she didn't realize how much I looked forward to our conversations. Years later Anna had finally graduated from high school, was attending college full-time and working full-time. She called me crying and apologized for the way she had previously treated me because she finally realized how I had felt. Make the best with what time you have now, who nows where you will end up tomorrow or ten years from now.
"Other things may change us, but we start and end with family." ~Anthony Brandt
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