Family

This has been bothering me for a couple of days and I felt the need to write it down so that I can rid myself of it. A co-worker was telling me she was tired yesterday and I agreed and said I was tired as well. Then she says to me, "Well at least you don't have a family to worry about." It caught me off guard even though she is well known among my circle of friends of being a person that often likes to hit you with a "jellyfish" comment. A jellyfish comment is one where you are stung but often feel the sting later once the person has walked off and you are no longer stunned. On "You've got mail" they call it being "zinged." I try to be a nice person and honestly it is not really hard work for me. I actually consider myself an extremely nice person and usually try to go out of my way to be friendly, until you sting me once or twice and then I really just try to ignore you and don't go out of my way to be bubbly and chummy with you anymore. To me this is probably giving people way more than they often deserve because most times all they want is to talk about themselves and then when it comes to my turn, they are suddenly busy or no longer interested---because it's not about THEM anymore.

The family thing gets to me though---in lots of ways. She said she wishes she knew then what she knows now and her life would be different. Well true---she's saying that she'd rather not have kids and is telling me I'm lucky that I have no family. Which I do feel sorry for her that she is so miserable in her life that she can't be happy with what she has....but everyone makes choices in life---she chose her path and I chose mine. I won't feel sorry for her having chose this particular path and she should keep her comments (if jellyfish-ish to herself). I indeed do have a family. It's a family that doesn't have runny-nosed children in diapers running around the house and a family that doesn't have a deadbeat, neglectful, money draining husband either. Why would I even want your apparent definition of family anyway? Don't be mean to me or act like I don't have the right to be tired EVER because I don't drive a mini-van, complain non-stop about kids I either chose to have or were accidents that make me exhausted and bitter instead of happy, and/or a husband whom I can't even stand to be around. Seriously, get over the bitterness people and learn to be happy with the choices YOU made and stop picking at me for being actually HAPPY with the choices I made.

And just to set the record straight, I indeed do know what it's like taking care of kids. I don't have my own, but being a nanny to ones who aren't yours can be just as exhausting (esp. when you are worried about how well you are taking care of someone else's kids and house.) I took care of four boys while in college. A typical day would go like this: get to their house after my classes and pick the youngest up from his school...then drive across town to pick up the other three from their school. Drive home, make dinner while they are doing their homework---the dinner had to be tweaked four different ways even for the twins. Make sure all of their karate gear was in the car--go to karate and do that for however long, drive home---make sure the oldest ones were getting their showers while helping the youngest...read scriptures, say prayers and put them all to bed...then I finally had some time to myself after cleaning up the house and taking care of the two dogs and cat. I truly loved those boys. But, that right there was how I finally made the decision that kids were great, but I did not have to have them in my life to fill some kind of void or have them because that was the thing to do. Those few years were exhausting and I wasn't even there every night. I knew that was not how I wanted to spend my life. These people who constantly complain about their kids...how sad is that?! They chose to have them and then they can't even enjoy them because of complaining so much. You have to figure out what works best for you and do that....and don't go around biting people's heads off or thinking they don't have things going on in their own life that gives them the right to be tired every now and then too.

So I say to you, that I do have a family...a family that supports me and loves me and is the most special thing in my life...and thank goodness I do, because after dealing with people like you all day who think without speaking and hurt people while never even realizing or caring, I'm glad to have something to come home to that means warmth, care, love, and happiness to me. And I'm thankful that my rendition of family apparently looks and acts NOTHING like yours.

FAMILY =