My Crazy Awesome Family

How I feel about my family changes almost every instant ... sometimes I miss them, sometimes I'm angry with them, sometimes they make me laugh, sometimes they make me tremble in fear. All together, I worry about them way too much but at the same time I wonder if it's really wrong to care about someone so much?

Then, every now and then, there is thought, a memory, a wish, that makes me aware of how good my family is. How good is each and every one of them. Sure, they mostly piss me off and drive me crazy, that's normal - they're my parents, they're my siblings! But hey, they are such amazing, smart and beautiful persons, it makes my ego boost and it makes me feel proud to tears to be a member of this crazy awesome family.

Anything Can Be a Trigger

I've been living thousand miles away from my family for almost half of a year now. I turned a new page, started a different life in an unknown place. Working hard, learning new languages, creating new friendships, even falling in love.

But it takes almost nothing to come right back to where I was for all those years before I moved away.
A weekend free of any obligations. A photo on Facebook. An email from sister. Or just a random drunk guy walking out of the bar.

Nothing changed at home. I know that. I saw it, others confirmed it. My dad's still turning in his cycles. My mum still doesn't have the courage to face him directly. My siblings still say it doesn't hurt them.

I, thousand miles away, am still searching for what I could do more, better, smarter.

It's been exactly six years since I was trembling during that awfull drive and we got back home with only a broken side mirror. Six years since I realized that alcohol is controlling my dad. I have no idea how much earlier, before I was ready to accept this fact, it really started. Since then we've gone through nearly all those stages of addicted families. He stopped drinking beer, then he stopped with the wine, for couple weeks first, then for couple months. Reassured that he can still control it, started drinking again, first one glass, then uncountable amounts. Laughed and joked on his sober days, being the perfect dad one could wish for, agonized and terorized everyone with his hatred and pain on the drunk ones. Up and down, back and forth we followed him.

All of this is still going on, only that there's a thousand miles between us. Only that I don't have to see nor smell it. And the little voice that got stuck in my head through all those hours of therapy keeps repeating the same thing. I can help most if I have a happy and fullfilled life. Fine! I know you're right! It just feels so unreal to be happy!

Being happy? What it that? Only good luck on the days when you manage to forget about the rest. But I'll keep on trying, until I believe I too have the right to be happy, until I accept that good times come and go just as well as the bad times aren't supposed to last forever.