Conditional Love

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If there’s one thing this Thanksgiving taught me, it’s that some family members have a time limit for how long they’ll show they love you.

There’s a sweet spot. Family members will love you no matter what if you’re part of two specific age ranges: young children or the elderly. When you’re young, people adore you because you’re so cute, naive and full of energy. It’s okay to act out because you still have time to grow.

When you’re a senior citizen, people choose to love you despite the bad behaviors you might present. And if anyone has anything negative to say about you, people will tell them to be respectful and will remind them that you’re from a different time. There’s no accountability requested of you because people just assume older family members can’t change since they’ve been that way all their lives. 

If you’re 21, you’re screwed.

Not all hope is lost if you’re male because you might have family members like those boy moms who want to date their sons. They’ll cheer on any little achievement of yours if you fall into that category. 

I’m just not that lucky.

When I walk through the door during the holidays, I feel as if I’m not supposed to be there. No one hugs me. If they do, it’s the awkward one-arm hug people do out of pity when they see you going in for one.

No one wants to talk to me, except for the younger kids and…the dog, I guess? But the dog doesn’t really talk. It’s more of a spit in my hand and peeing on the carpet I just stood on. While not the best company, it’s better than being completely ignored. And if it weren’t for my younger cousins, I would’ve walked away thinking Thanksgiving was horrible. But I got to play games with them.

No one seems proud of my achievements. I try to keep my comments limited so I’m not overbearing in a conversation, but the moment I want to say something about myself, it falls upon deaf ears. I pulled up a picture from last Thanksgiving to show how different I looked now that I lost 50 pounds. My cousin didn’t have a reaction. I doubt that she even looked at the phone. I got more of a reaction from her friend that I met that same day. 

It’s like I’m invisible to her, and that stung the most because I felt so connected to her when I was a kid. After all, she was my dance teacher. Maybe she hates me because I quit. I don’t know. And I can’t call her out on it because she has reached the age where you just love her. She’s in the sweet spot.

I’m not the only person she does it to. My mom receives some of the cold treatment as well. The only difference is that my mom will continue to include herself in the conversation, while I just feel like I’m wasting my time. I wish I were more like that, but I can’t fathom the idea of continuing to talk to someone who barely gives a head nod as a response.

The only time my cousin talked about me warmly and lovingly was when it was about the past, when I was a kid. It’s not like that’s a rare thing to happen, but it makes me wonder. Am I unlovable now because I’ve grown up?

This has happened with other family members too. I have a cousin who is my age and his mom used to be so loving toward me. I remember that at any given moment, she would give me a big kiss on the cheek. I didn’t find out until later that she despised my mother, my grandmother and my grandfather. 

She stopped showing up to family events that had them there. That meant I never saw her. I wonder if that’s how she felt all along. And maybe she was saving my child self the burden of knowing that she hated everybody in my family. She just had to stick it through until I was old enough to understand.

They don’t seem to understand that once I’m old enough to know the truth, it’s the child version that lives inside of me that gets hurt. These family members set me up for disappointment by portraying a false image instead of acting disinterested in me from the beginning. 

Maybe it’s all in my head. Maybe it’s not that they stopped loving me, but they just don’t feel like they have to pretend everything is perfect all the time. Even if that were the truth, it still doesn’t stop me from feeling like an outsider in my own family.

I always say that I dread the day when my grandmother and mother won't be around anymore. I know for a fact that barely anyone will check up on me or invite me to holiday dinners or family gatherings. They are the glue and the reason we receive an invite in the first place. Because my grandmother is in the sweet spot. Because my mother isn’t afraid to ask.

I know. “The phone works both ways” is something my family might tell me if I ever told them how I felt. I’m just so jealous of the people who have big families and they all come around for the holidays. And from an outside point of view, it doesn’t look like it’s hard to try and have a conversation with someone. To get them to care.

I just don’t think Thanksgiving would have been different if I hadn’t gone.