I love extended family as I don’t have many friends and family is where I feel safe. My mother is bitter at members of the extended family and will not go to many family get togethers. The general social rule is your invited if your parents are. As a result I miss out on a lot of family get togethers because if my parents don’t go then it ends up seeing intrusive when I show up alone as though I am inviting myself.
When my grandmother was alive she would invite me separately but now it is the approach of come if your parents do and my parents rarely do aside from one uncle’s family. The exception is Christmas they usually do go by with a present for a short time and I always come along with them.
As a result I feel a great loss in my life. I have talked to my mother about it but she says “don’t lecture me” and now that I am an adult I can’t really make her. My other siblings don’t care about it. I often feel ashamed when we are the one group in the family missing out as will be the case this 4th of July. As a result I am going to travel 4th of July.
How could I overcome this or do I just need to accept the sorrow that comes with it. This also leads to me missing my grandmother even more and adds to the sorrow of her death two summers back.
I don’t want to be bitter at my mother as she is very sensitive like me and so whereas I keep trying sometimes too much, she gives up too soon when her feelings are hurt. At the same time there is anger when I am hurting even if she can’t help some of her hurt feelings. My father has no choice but to go along with what his wife wishes to do with the family.
