Families are wildly complicated. They’re the only types of people where society genuinely does expect you to take whatever garbage a family member might serve you… again and again and again. It’s exhausting. And just ugh. I’m at a fairly social heavy shindig retreat thingy the remainder of this week, and since it’s happening in a town about an hour away from my mother, I decided to take a deep breath, get on a plane a few days earlier and make seeing her part of the trip. I was vague about my availability when I talked with her, so she was counting on one day. I don’t even suggest the possibility of more anymore. It’s a little bit like managing a kid and you say “maybe” and to them that’s as good as a promise written in blood.

In any case, I committed to one day, and I knew if that went well I could suggest brunch the next day or something. The one committed day was done a few days ago. As it wound down, I left it at that. And I spent all day yesterday spun up, tense, grumpy, on edge, insecure, and generally just emotionally messy. And before anyone starts with me, *she* doesn’t make me that way. *I* let her get to me. I know that, but it’s no less exhausting, disappointing or infuriating.

All good narcissists will test the boundaries of whatever rules you give them in order to be in your life. I’m utterly out of practice at having those boundaries pushed in person. An eight-hour day is very different than a phone call where I can lie off of my ass and say gotta go because insert unverifiable reason here. It doesn’t help that I literally have nothing in common with her and find her current husband (don’t ride me, this is #5) to be, at best, an arrogant boor. And he’s almost never at his *best*. Ew, I’m noticing shallower breathing and muscles tightening just trying to type this out. At the end of the day, she is who she is. She’s in her 70s and she’s literally never going to change. I don’t expect her to change. I have her in my life as minimally as possible, and usually that works fine.

In any case, where I was really going with this was gratefulness that I have about 1.5 days between seeing her and my retreaty, social shindig. I’ll be attending with all kinds of folks, most of whom I don’t know at all or know anecdotally. It’ll be an “all on” sort of thing for an introvert like me who can socialize pretty well, but woah, it takes a lot out of me. And I’ll be mindful that maybe I’m not starting at my best as I fight off some of the residual emotional gross from just that one full day of in person dealing with my mother. And I’ll be mindful that you don’t share that sort of thing with strangers — especially when you know at least one of them has lost parents they adored in the past year. And that’s fine. That’s normal and acceptable and generally doesn’t bother me.

What bothers me is the general societal expectation that family is to be honored–that I’m pre-tired at all because I felt obligated to see her. I’m supposed to bend over backwards to make wrong things right. That I have a best friend whose family is damned near abusive to her in their simultaneous expectations and demands but also marked neglect. She and I both know how to quit folks rapidly who aren’t good for us– but only outside of the blood family context, and we both struggle at the expectation that we are supposed to make “real family” right. What do you do when genuinely a relationship is nothing but a burden at best and hurtful on average and abusive at worst? Why do we make it feel like people who treasure family at any cost get bonus points?

Back when I bothered to date, I can’t tell you how many guys were put off by my not having my father in my life at all and my mother only at a regulated distance — as though my parents choosing each other for all of their unhealthy glory because it felt familiar or felt good to them is somehow my fault. And that if I were a better human, I’d be able to fix it? Or at least to prove my “goodness” by enduring it with enthusiasm. Then they’d tell me these “great” stories about their siblings or parents that as I’m listening I’m thinking… wow, that is some messed up stuff, and if you think that’s “love”, then I’m gonna hard pass now. Thanks, okay? Byeeee.

Contrast that to how many people I know who have “found family” and honor those relationships like the gold that they are. That see what I see in “real” family. I feel seen by those people. I look at them with respect and know they are courageous, they see their own self-worth, they’ve done a lot of personal, hard work, and I rejoice for them that they’ve found people to love them and they can love the way we’ve all been taught that family should.