When Family Drama Becomes the Next Generation’s Burden
At the end of Part 1, I said something that has been sitting heavy on my heart…
I wasn’t the only one losing my cousins.
My sons were losing theirs too.
And maybe that’s the part that hurts me the most.
Because I know what it feels like to grow up surrounded by cousins who feel like siblings.
I know the sleepovers.
The inside jokes.
The ridiculous childhood adventures.
The memories that still make you laugh decades later.
My sons don’t really have that with their cousins.
Some of our children barely even know each other.
And when I really sit with that…
It breaks my heart.
As I got older, I started realizing just how much the problems between adults in a family can trickle down to the children.
Someone’s mom doesn’t like someone’s dad.
Someone’s aunt is mad at someone’s uncle.
Someone did something years ago.
Someone said something.
Someone picked a side.
And somehow…
The cousins end up paying for it.
There have been times when cousins hanging out becomes an issue simply because somebody else doesn’t like the person they’re hanging out with.
And I’m sitting there thinking:
But that wasn’t our beef!
Why do we have to inherit grudges we didn’t create?
Why can’t we just be cousins?
Why can’t we laugh, love each other, let our kids know each other, and build relationships separate from whatever happened before us?
But family doesn’t always work that way.
Sometimes people hand their hurt down like an inheritance.
And before you realize it, the next generation is carrying wounds from situations they weren’t even around to witness.
Then there’s another part of this that is difficult for me to admit.
Sometimes I feel like the black sheep of my family.
I see the parties.
The gatherings.
The celebrations.
The pictures.
And many times…
I’m not there.
Not because I couldn’t come.
Because I wasn’t invited.
And I won’t pretend like it doesn’t bother me.
It does.
It hurts my soul.
Especially because I genuinely love my cousins.
I’ve never wanted anything bad for them. I’ve never wanted to compete with them or tear them down. I’ve never intentionally tried to disrespect them.
I just wanted to be their family.
So sometimes I sit there wondering:
What did I do?
Why am I always on the back burner?
How did I go from being part of the circle to watching the circle from the outside?
Maybe I’ll never completely understand.
But I do know this:
Being excluded by people you don’t care about is one thing.
Being excluded by people you love is completely different.
I’ve learned that grief doesn’t always involve death.
Sometimes grief is remembering a relationship that technically still exists…
But doesn’t feel the same anymore.
Sometimes it’s seeing a picture and remembering when you used to know everything going on in that person’s life.
Sometimes it’s remembering someone’s house that once felt like your second home.
Sometimes it’s watching your children become strangers to the children of people who once felt like your sisters.
And sometimes it’s realizing:
I don’t just miss my cousins.
I miss us.
I miss who we were before adulthood complicated everything.
Before grudges.
Before sides.
Before family drama.
Before invitations, or the lack of them, made you question where you stood.
I miss when we were just kids.
We didn’t know enough about the adults’ problems to make them our problems.
We just knew we were family.
And back then…
That was enough.
If somebody asked me what one of my biggest wishes is before I leave this earth, my answer probably wouldn’t involve money.
It wouldn’t be a bigger house.
It wouldn’t be a fancy car.
It wouldn’t be anything material.
I’d want my family back.
Not necessarily the family we are today.
I mean the family we used to have.
I would love to see my family healed.
I would love to see us together again.
Not fake together.
Not everybody smiling for a picture and then talking about each other as soon as they leave.
I mean REALLY together.
I want to see our children playing together.
I want to sit around with my cousins laughing about all the ridiculous things we did growing up.
I want somebody to remind Bria that she survived being our childhood test dummy.
I want my sons to understand why these people meant so much to their mama.
And I want to look around and see the girls who once felt like my sisters.
Older.
Different.
Wiser.
But still…
FAMILY.
But there’s one question I’ve had to ask myself that I didn’t want to answer:
What if the family I’m waiting to get back… doesn’t exist anymore?
What if loving everyone isn’t enough to bring everyone back together?
What if some of us never become close again?
And what if healing my family doesn’t actually mean what I’ve spent all these years believing it meant?
Because I eventually realized something that changed the way I looked at all of this:
Maybe I was trying to heal something that was never mine to fix.
And once I understood that…
I had to make a decision.
Not just for myself.
For my sons.
Because if I couldn’t change what happened in the generations before me…
I could damn sure decide what I was going to pass down to the generation after me.
To Be Continued…
Part 3: It Stops With Me… What I Refuse to Pass Down
I spent years wishing I could put my family back together.
Then I realized maybe my purpose wasn’t to put the broken pieces back where they were.
Maybe it was to make sure I didn’t hand those broken pieces to my children.
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