Weekend from Hell

Oh where to start this wondrous tale....

Last weekend I went to my oldest niece's graduation from HS in Titusville FL. It was a stressful situation all the way around. Whether my family meant to do it or not, they seemed to pull me into the middle of a drama filled weekend.

It started 43 years ago when my mom was married to someone else and had my big brother. After a few years they divorced and my mom kept my brother. Her Ex decided he was going to be a loser and not pay child support. I will, however, point out that her Ex was really really young, and when we are young we all make HUGE mistakes. My mom was baptized by this point and had met my father, all while raising my brother on her own without any help. Mom and my dad decide to get married and that Dad wants to adopt my brother. Well the only way to get her Ex to sign off on the adoption papers was to tell him she would fore go any of the back child support if and only if he signs the paperwork. Her Ex didn't even think about it, he just signed.

Fast forward to Spring of 2009. I had gone down to FL to visit my brother and his family. Side note: I love to go see them. They live near the beach and I wish I could travel to see them more often. But back to the subject at hand... I am sitting in my niece's room packing up my bags and she says she has something serious she wants to ask me. She then proceeds to tell me that when she graduates in a year she wants her whole family there, and that includes my mom's Ex and his wife. She wants my advice on how to tell my mom that she is going to invite him. I put on a non-shocked face and say "talk to Grandad (Grandad is my dad if you didn't catch that) first. Before you even mention it to her. He will know better than me how to break that kind of news to her. But pray first." She said she would, and asked me not to mention any of this to anyone. I told her I wouldn't, finished packing and headed home.

Needless to say I was freaking out inside about the whole thing. Throughout my life I had never heard anything but bad things about this man. I had always heard that he was the scum of the earth for treating mom the way he did, and for giving up my brother the way he did. So my drive home was a little stressed out. I promised her I wouldn't say anything to anyone, and I didn't...

Well I didn't for about 4 months. When I couldn't handle the stress anymore I called my little sister and told her the story. Needless to say she was a stressed as I was. She and I prayed about it for a long time. When the whole family finally knew my other brother, my sister and I discussed it frequently. We never really included my oldest brother because we didn't want to hurt his feelings with what was going through our heads about the situation. The three of us did a fast for my mom the Sunday before we were supposed to leave.

On the drive down the mood was very subdued. I tried to be my perky happy self, but it came out forced. We talked and chatted about nonsensical things, but mostly I napped and listed to my iPod. (Bless the man who created a way for me to hide in my own little world.) I got in no less than 3 fights with my mom and two with my father. The last with my fight ended with a huge scene in front of a large group of people in the lobby of the hotel. With my dad's final words being "Well fine! You can find your own way home!" I was in tears, and it just plain sucked. My dad has a very short fuse but once he goes off, and he then takes some time to cool off and then think, he is a normal person again. I won't go into details of the fight because it was a stupid fight over absolutely nothing. I spent the weekend being their punching bag because I love them so damn much. I wouldn't have put up with it if I didn't love them. Granted it hurt and it still hurts, matter of fact I am crying writing this, but after all of the stress that they had gone through I guess it was the least I could do to help them. Side note: Once my dad cooled of he spent the next 7 hours apologizing. He really did try, but after being yelled at in front of a group of people like I was 10, it was very difficult to forgive him.

Now the weekend itself could probably be considered a success but honestly, I am tired of my family. I love them all to pieces but after all of the drama and stress they put me through, I just wanted to get away from them. Which is what I did... ;)