Forcing the Negative Out, One Day at a Time

Friends.  Wonderers.  Internet trolls.  I write to you today about a resolution of sorts.  Something I think is long overdue for me.  I am writing to you about trying to force negative energy out of my life.

This is not an epiphany I had during a yoga session.  It's not an idea born out of literature I've been reading.  It's not even something I saw on a Pinterest board.  Nope.  This resolution came right out of my own brain after a particularly rough month of July.  I need a change.  And this is the first step.

My relationship has been something of a mess lately, and FAB and I have been having a lot of heavy conversations about what we can do to make it better.  I take a lot of responsibility for the issues we've been having, as I am arguably the most bitchy and selfish version of myself I have been since my teenage years.  How I manage to keep him around at all, I couldn't tell you.  He's amazing like that.

Anyway, something that came up in one of our discussions is my negative energy, brought on by how negative my family is.  As hard as this is to hear, I have absolutely no defense against it.  It's 100% true.  Always has been.  As a kid, my house was always booming with loud arguments.  There are also series of judgmental family members, and gripes about who didn't do what when it was asked of them, or why this person is making poor life choices.  The most bizarre thing about this, is that one of the worst offenders of these crimes was my mother.  And my mother was also the glue that held everyone together; vibrantly happy, even in her last, more depressive years.  Now that she isn't around to be the sunshine in the family, I seem to be facing an endless expanse of storm clouds.

Just this morning, I was having a conversation with my Facebook-abusing aunt (well, finishing a conversation from yesterday) about my cousin being covered in tattoos.  Finding out that my young cousin has 11 tattoos on her body somehow signaled to my aunt that my cousins life is in shambles and she was headed for all kinds of trouble.  I'm not saying I agree or support all the decisions my cousin is making right now, but her 11 tattoos are the least of my worries.  She continued to tell me that she feels bad for, but loves my cousin anyway.  And then she told me she doesn't consider my cousins brothers her family.  That's quite the jump, isn't it?

I understand that she is feeling neglected by these particular family members.  Promises were made, and not kept, and they don't make an effort to stay in touch.  But that is no reason to disown them!  She explained to me that she "can't care about someone who doesn't care about her."  Okay, that's fair.  Then why waste your energy thinking about how much you disapprove of their choices?  If they aren't worth your time, they aren't worth your time.  Period.  She even mentioned a few more of my cousins who do make the effort to see her and my grandmother.  Okay.  Great.  They don't really make an effort to see me or my dad, but instead of being angry about it, I'm just gonna not think about them.  My time is too precious to waste judging my family for the things they don't do.

So, I am trying to keep my chin up through it all.  Forcing out the bad, and searching for the good.  It's exhausting, but it's better than the alternative.