Family

I was laying here and suddenly I could taste the cigarette residue enveloping my mouth. The musty chalky taste filling every taste bud and space of my nose. The whole thing was straight out of a dream. I felt like I was truly tasting ans smelling and covered in nicotine and smoke flavor. Goooooooood stuff. Man sometimes those addictions sneak up on you all hardcore and intense and BAM! you feel so tempted to erase however long you have gone without them. I have had many slips in my sobriety when I finally realized I needed to quit. I guess it just wasn't realistic to think I could quit on a whim or cold turkey. I feel on the verge of another slip and the only thin holding me back is my desire to stay in school. Without that...I don't know where I would be. Coming to college is what saved my life in the first place.

I know I should take credit for my sobriety but coming to a college where I knew I would get kicked out if I got caught, made me get sober fast. I have a high priority on living an honest life. None of us are perfect but it is important to me to live as close to completely honest as possible. I lie sometimes. Hell ask me how that dress looks and I will say good unless it really does look fabulous in which case I am likely to say wowzers! I just find it easier to lie sometimes. Like when you ask me how I am doing sometimes it is just better to say fine then have to explain how some stupid thing said three years ago is still eating away at my self confidence.

I have been thinking about family a lot lately. I have been reflecting on my own family a lot. I love my family. I know we are broken and torn apart but deep down there is a glue that holds the pieces of us together and that can't be ripped. Sometimes I think it has been, but it's there still. I feel betrayed by my parents for allowing porn in our home growing up but there comes a point when I look back and see that they did the best they could with what they had at the time. Knowing that they wanted to do what is right but somehow just failed, came up short, I can look at them with compassion and allow them that second chance, even if it comes in pieces.

I know that my parents failed as parents but I am willing to let them try to be my friend on an equal level as I have become an adult. I am slowly letting them earn some trust and respect here and there. I want them to be better. I want my dad to learn to control his temper and rage. I would like to see them go to marriage counseling instead of giving up. The giving up is what hurts the most. Seeing your parents just give up on their marriage is hard.

I think my parents have hit their 30th wedding anniversary now and after so long it seems such a horrible nightmare for it all to go away. Sometimes I think they are trying to save the marriage by going on dates and such but then they go back to their old ways and I feel so deep a sadness for them. I want a lifelong companion and yet they have one but have chosen to just give up on the relationship.

I think that marriage should be about love but I think it isn't because that is unrealistic. It is a contract. At some point in marriage there comes a point where you feel no positive regard for your spouse and what you choose to do in that moment defines you as a person as well as sets the precedent for the rest of your married life. Those who decide to serve their spouse even when they find they have lost feeling show their commitment, loyalty, and integrity. Those who choose to live as roommates, get divorced, or fight continually have shown that they do not fully understand those same three things.

Marriage teaches us to learn to love. We grow closer as the years go by, not that we find ourselves in the deepest place of love at the beginning and only maintain that love for the entirety of the marriage. You embark on a journey when you get married and then you change and grow. It only makes sense that the love would do the same: change and grow. That doesn't mean it doesn't fluctuate at times and go down, but it goes back up too.

Sometimes I feel like I have been given some endless ability to care about other people. I used to assume everyone felt that way I do about people but I have learned over the last 5 or whatever years that that is so far from the truth. First I learned that even though my brother is my brother he would sell me out in a heart beat if it meant no jail time for him. Second, I learned that selfishness comes number one in most people. I learned that through Dani the most but many people showed me the ropes on that one. It only takes looking in people's eyes to see that they look no farther than their own. Ok, I have to say right here that there are some key exceptions to a lot of the pessimism I feel about people.

As far as exceptions, my grandmother will always be a caring and compassionate woman in my heart. She volunteers at a thrift store as their accountant and has been doing it for years. I have seen the service she provides her community and have been in awe of her selflessness. If I could be more like her, I would be a better person. My grandmother has written me letters long and short of the years and through doing so has exhibited her ability to look beyond her own world. When I was a kid and my grandparents ran the alcohol stores I learned that my grandparents are no stranger to hard work and I realized how honest they are. I have always been impressed with my grandmother's integrity. The woman would still be the same in the dark of night when no one could see her. It is ingrained in the very fabric of her DNA to be honest.

Besides my grandmother a few people have shown they are good people. My grandfather is one. I sometimes wonder how my mother came from such good stock and somehow chose my father to marry. Odd thing to do. Of course my grandparents disapprove of him. He he. Good people.

So, family. The Luiz clan is pretty tight and always has been. I may have had parents who didn't parent but I have always had amazing aunts, grandparents, and cousins. Mom's side of the family might be drinkers and smoke weed but they are good, decent people. Every summer I went to stay with them all I felt that it was a shelter from the storm of life and home. I have never doubted the love they feel for me and I have always loved them in return. They are near and dear to my heart.

Sometimes I wonder what I will do in the future, whether I will have a family of my own. I think that having children would bring me great joy but it's the married part that kinda gets me. I mean struggling with what I do I guess I just would hate to see a man not be happy in marriage. I have seen my father so unhappy in his marriage for so long that I could not possibly watch that in my own spouse. Guess I am just reflecting a lot on family lately and what mine means to me.

Family can be friends we are stuck with and I just hope mine somehow works things out to the point that we can be friends and not just stuck.