Life is like a card game

Life is like a card game………sometimes you have to bluff just to stay in the game

This week I received several emails I didn’t expect from family members. One was from someone I no longer speak to………..This person forwarded me an email I sent to them over 3 years ago. It was a “thank you for your support” email that I sent during a very trying and tough time in my life due to a family illness. The funny thing is he thought that reading this email would remind me of that time and change my mind on the distance and silence I chose to have with him well over a year ago. Much to his disappointment it did nothing of the sort. It just reminded me of how much this person uses situations to their advantage and thinks that no matter what their actions, they should be forgiven without asking for forgiveness or admitting any wrong doing. Unfortunately early intervention did not happen with this particular person. He never learned to take responsibility for his actions, figured out when to say “when” or admit when he made a mistake. I can’t point fingers any more nor change the past, but what I can do is my best to ensure that my kids understand right from wrong, learn to take responsibility for their actions and are respectful of those around them even when they may not necessarily agree with someone’s decision, opinion or action.

Then I received an email from yet 2 other family members talking about something they did and how they would have done the same thing for me. The funny thing about it was they didn’t do the same for me just 2 months earlier. When I called them out on it I was given every excuse they could come up with as to why they weren’t able to do what they said they would never do. Both rarely admit when they did something wrong and I know that their perception of reality is so far from mine that there is no use in trying to be rational.

After 37 years of trying to get all of them to see my side, I came to the realization that it was a waste of my time and energy. The best I can do now is live my life the best way I know how, learn from their mistakes as well as my own and do better by myself, my family and my kids. I choose early intervention every time over a life of frustration, fighting and tension. I believe that sweeping important issues under the rug never results in anything good. No matter how complex the issue, talking through it and working through it is a much better way to deal with whatever life throws at you.

Sometimes I think what if………….What if instead of having a fight and then forgetting it ever happened we all had sat down and talked about what we were feeling. What if I hadn’t grown up in a “my way or the highway” sort of family or had my “other family” to turn to when there were things going on at home I just wanted to run away from and finally what if I hadn’t snapped myself out of my own spiraling depression and got my act together. I spent 5 years falling deeper and deeper into a depression which I rarely talk about and the ironic thing about it is that maybe 1 or 2 people had any idea of what I was going through. Only those 1 or 2 people actually understood that I was feeling the way I was and acting the way I was b/c I felt like nothing I did or said was good enough and even worse, that nothing I said was taken seriously.

Almost 20 years after going through the worst time in my life, I am finally able to admit that I hit rock bottom and figured out a way to pull myself out of it. I guess you can say I found a way to turn lemons into lemonade. I was that card game, bluffing everyone out just to get through each day without having to let my guard down. However bittersweet it is, I don’t think I would be who and where I am today without my past happening the way it did and for that I guess I should be grateful I went through what I did growing up. I learned to take the good with the bad and turn it into something great.