Upbringing

 The sissy and I had a surprising chat last night.

Background: I only have one older sibling, my sister, whom I'm not really close to. We grew up fighting a lot and having distance emotionally. I attributed this to our age gap and to the fact that I am my parents' favorite kid (they didn't try to hide it, lol).  When we "matured," we were able to have more frequent conversations.  By "matured" I mean around 7 years ago, lol. 

Additional background: Our family's (immediate and our mother side) emotionally detached. The sissy and I jokingly attribute this to our being part-Chinese, but who knows really.

We were talking about our mom's ability to dampen plans (we half-jokingly recognize her power to jinx) (this is another story), when we took a turn to our dad's presence in our lives.

Background, again: Our dad passed away in 2012, when he was 61 years old. He stopped working when he was around 42 years old and my sis and I were around 12 and 8 years old, respectively. Problems multiplied after that, with our being financially challenged to our parents' difference in personalities.

It was last night when I shared some details of how I grew up in our household and she was surprised about how our dad (well, and mom) affected my childhood/teen years. I felt her sympathy, maybe because she was not "present" much in my life, considering our being distant and since she immersed herself in school/friends.  She told me how it made so much sense that I grew very dependent on friends and writing journals (hi, I'm still writing online lol) and how I tried veering away during the last days of our dad.

I didn't really think much of my childhood.  I always thought it was pretty normal and I'm okay, living in my own world. It was last night when I realized that, f*ck, my family somehow f*cked me up.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not blaming them for anything. I just didn't realize their effect on my way of thinking, my dependence on friends, etc.,--basically who I am today.

Then I felt sad. All these things and emotions I were never able to process properly, as I learned living in my own world. 

I felt broken.

Oh, I semi-blamed my first failed relationship on this. I'm 99% sure I would not have committed in that, if I had proper/better family relationship.  Plus, it made sense that I still do not feel okay despite having moved on. As it turns out, I was not okay from the start.

I recognize the fact that I won't be where I am today if I hadn't gone through all the joys/hardships.  But I sure hope I feel less broken.  I guess realizing my brokenness is the first step to recovery? 

So I guess upbringing really matters. The environment you grew up in, the people you grew up with.  I always thought the person's innate personality takes up the majority of that person's attitude but I guess other people can really build you or mess you up. 

Oh well.