My family dynamics are complicated. I’m sure everyone feels this way in some capacity, but I feel it to the extreme.

I haven’t spoken to my mother in nearly 3 years. Today she called me to tell me that my uncle who I have very little contact with is dying of lung cancer. It was the strangest conversation of my life, when it ended I felt a strange sense of emptiness. Not emptiness in the sense of loss, but emptiness in the sense of being totally devoid of emotion. My mother and I have never been particularly close. I acknowledge that I probably wasn’t an easy child to raise. I was very closed up, unable to express my emotions. But my mother is ill-suited to be a parent. She can be maternal, but there are issues mentally that I feel make her unable to make the selfless sacrifices needed to raise a child, especially a daughter. Continue reading →