Dear Daniel

Dear Daniel,

I have the best kind of friends. They’re all batcrap crazy, but still they’re better than the dysfunctional, batcrap family that I have. Allow me to explain.

Last night I had dinner with my mom and dad. Recently, my sister Sara lost her job, due to a ‘personality conflict’. My youngest sister is a total redneck. Not in any negative sense of the word. She’s loyal even when perhaps the person she’s loyal to doesn’t deserve it. But at the same time she’s a manipulative person who will go out of her way to get what she wants.

So as I was saying, I was at Bob Evans for dinner. Mom gets the call on the way home. Yes mom, I know I have a truck and a boyfriend who could get off his ass and go get and do the running that the family needs to do, but instead I’ll ask you to go to Wal-Mart and pay for everything.

Listen, I’ve seen pictures of you smoking. But I’m not a smoker. And there’s no way in hell I’m paying for someone else’s habit. Mom justified buying all this stuff for them and keeping us out until 8:30 at night while Sara and her family sat snug in their apartment.

I used to eat out with my mom and dad A LOT. And they footed the bill. I try not to do it as much because they’ve made it clear on more than one occasion they don’t want to. Which is fine. But they don’t do it nearly as often as they used to, yet I get the same lecture every time I go with them. Order off the cheap end of the menu. Get water to drink. They treat me like a child yet they bend over backwards for Sara and her family and Brandy and her son.

I suppose that’s their prerogative, and given I live in their home so that I can pursue my passion I should count my blessings and let it be at that.

But admittedly it’s difficult. I’m eating better and exercising so the negative emotions, and the old wounds reopen much easier now that I’m not covering them up.

At the table, even in the face of me ordering the cheapest dinner, they tell me I’m hard to live with. They tell me I’m the most sensitive to my own feelings. And all be call me their most demanding child.

What do I actually ask of them? Something they want desperately to give to other people. Their time. They complain when I work and want to talk when I’ve completed a real full day. When I have news, like industry people giving me invaluable feedback on my work or said industry people possibly showing said work to those I couldn’t possibly reach from where I am currently they give me the equivalent of an emotional shrug.

Meanwhile my friends know that for the kind of work I do these things I do are huge and have the potential to get me out of a place where the appreciation is little and the ignorance of what I do is vast.

So why do I crave their validation when it’s obvious they want no part of this life? And will likely only stand up and cheer when the actual ship comes in. My friends appreciate and love me for who I am and what I do. 

My family’s eyes simply glaze over when I talk about what my life is without them.

I love my family, but my friends have been the collective on which I depend both personally and professionally. Pam and Missy, they are without a doubt batcrap crazy, but then so am I. I understand their crazy and for the most part they understand mine. And for that reason I’ll be able to switch gears and finish my NaNoWriMo word count.

Sincerely,

Amy McCorkle