Dear in-laws,

I, honestly, must really love you.  Not that it would ever be obvious, but it must absolutely be true.  After all these years, no one else has ever caused me to feel this conflicted.  We are very different, I know, I get it.  It was a bit of an adjustment at the beginning, I admit, but I got used to you.  Hopefully, you have gotten a little more used to me as well.  This past year and half has been the most difficult by far.  Between the accident on one side and living together on the other, it’s been the hardest period of time in my life.  I can’t imagine what it’s been like for my husband, your son, stepson, brother.  Much harder, I’m sure.  I will say though, I do believe that all of you have been placed in my life, for me, to truly understand the meaning of family.

All of you – mostly – make me mental.  It’s true.  I’m sorry.  I know I make you mental too.   I’m sorry for that.  I don’t do it on purpose.  I swear!  🙂  My family, what there is of it, is so different from all of you.  I only know how to be one way – who I am.  I’m blatant, I’m obvious, I’m very much in your face.  There is nothing subtle or complicit about me.  I’m balls-out – all the time.  I know that can be a lot to handle, again, I’m sorry.  This is it. I am what I am and I don’t know how to be anything else.  Having said that, I would really be so happy if that was ok with you.  You’re all freaks, in your own ways, and I’m ok with it.  I’ll admit, sometimes I feel like I don’t love you, but mainly it’s because all of you like to guess what someone else is thinking or feeling instead of being a big boy or girl and just coming right out and asking.  Please, please don’t try to read into my actions.  Take them at face value.  If you are confused or unsure of something I’ve said or done, ask me to explain it or clarify it.  I will do so willingly.  We’re not always going to agree or have the same point of view.  That’s ok.  We don’t have to share a brain to get along or to love each other unconditionally.

I’ve wanted to write about you many times and I’ve found it exceedingly difficult because I didn’t want to be insulting.  Honestly, I’m a few glasses in and it’s finally making sense.  I do, fucking, love you.  I would swallow my arm for us to all get along.  To my sister-in-law, (I have three, but this only applies to one)…I wish you would have accepted me.  I struggle with you and the idea of you endlessly, because, as different as we are, I know we are also very, very much alike.  That kind of galls me, but not so much on the other hand.  I know we could have been amazing friends.  I know you could have been the sister I never had.  I’m so sad that it never happened.

My family is pretty well done now. I grew up without an extended family because of my own parents’ choices.  I don’t want to go on, personally, any longer without all of you and I don’t want that for my husband or my children either.  What I need though, is for all of us, different from each other or the same, to be loved and to be accepted.  We can’t be a family if we can’t be loved for being ourselves.