The Friends & Family Detox Diet
Many years ago, I was desperate to trace my family tree. I wanted to go back as far as I could, determined to find out who my ancestors were. I wanted to learn the names of my great great great grandparents and where they came from. I even had a fancy notebook that I used to fill in the blanks from information on Ancestry.com. Somewhere along the way, though, I lost interest in the details. As I witnessed my extended family disintegrate and go their separate ways, I stopped trying to insert myself into a history that I no longer really cared about. My roots suddenly don’t mean very much to me anymore.
My dad spent part of the past weekend in the hospital. It’s so hard being 700 miles away knowing that he is not in great health. This has been an ongoing event for the past year or so, and I am terrified at the thought of losing him. When my grandfather passed away a couple of years ago, I thought that my dad would make his way back to North Carolina. After all, what remains in Northern Michigan for him besides a house full of old junk and memories? For whatever reason, he chose to stay. Last Friday, one of his sisters texted to say that he was in an ambulance, and then refused to give me any additional information. I called his other sister, and she pretended to not know what was going on before stating that she is absolutely disgusted with me for not coming to Michigan to be my dad’s caregiver. I hung up on her before she could say anything else. I won’t allow them to make me feel like a selfish person for refusing to sacrifice my life here to move there. I cannot imagine treating my own brother and nephew the way that they behave toward my dad and me.
Today is my first day off in a very long stretch of time. I am sitting in my living room with a cup of tea and a Harry Potter movie playing in the background. I can’t tolerate silence in my house when I’m home alone. Leading up to today, I planned to put up my holiday decorations and make my house feel festive pre-Thanksgiving. However, I just can’t muster up the energy and willpower to make it happen. I easily lean toward pessimism despite my best attempts to do the opposite, and sometimes a girl just needs space to feel a little sad. Everything feels very heavy at the moment. This week has been a reminder that I need to focus more on tightening the net around my circle of friends. While I have my own strong beliefs in politics and morality, I have never been the type to flaunt them to others. I want to think that I can try to understand other points of view, but I am now being reminded that so many people cannot be bothered to do the same. My own family members have proven to be some of the worst at this. I am ashamed to share the same set of grandparents with some of them. Hence the disinterest in the family tree. I would not think twice about chopping it down for firewood. The hatred and contempt that people who share my DNA feel towards others is an atrocity.
The twins’ dad hasn’t seen them in over a year now. He hasn’t called them or had a FaceTime call since Christmas Day of 2023. He is such a vile, useless human being. Since he hasn’t exercised any of his visitation this year, I reached out to my attorney about reducing his visitation. At the time, she suggested that we push to terminate his parental rights, but that gives him the benefit of no longer paying child support. I owe him nothing of the sort. The least he can do is financially support the two beautiful girls that he cannot be bothered to visit. He apparently has a new girlfriend now, and I am sure that he has spun some new tall tale about why I don’t allow him to see them. The court order is in black and white, though. The choice to be absent is his own. The girls have zero contact with anyone in his family. I guess the Captain’s family tree is a little rotten, too.
Earlier today, as I moved around picture frames to dust in my living room, I came across a picture frame that has held space on my shelf for more than 20 years. It was a somewhat cheesy block frame with wooden letters spelling out the word “Family” in rounded letters. The same photo has been in it for as long as I can remember, one taken with my dad’s side of the family when Kylie was just a baby. My grandparents are there, surrounded by my aunts and uncles, my cousins and their children. My dad and I are in the middle, laughing as I tuck a tag into my (now ex) husband’s shirt. For so long, I have glanced at this photo and felt sad that most of these people are either no longer alive or no longer speaking. But today, I had had enough. I removed the photo and tossed the frame in the pile of donations to take to the thrift store later on. My idiotic aunts and cousins no longer deserve to be in my daily line of sight.
I also purged a healthy amount of friends and followers from my Facebook and Instagram. I have always had this desire to stay in contact with people once our paths ceased to cross every day. Former co-workers, childhood friends, acquaintances from college. But I have realized that people don’t always deserve to have access to me. If their posts and comments and mere existence is causing distress to me in any way, they don’t belong in my world, digital or otherwise.
A good social media cleanse can do wonders for a weary soul.
