Grandpa Problems wow
HI I USE LJ AS A VENT OKAY HERE GOES!!!
Thanksgiving 2009 was a miserable time for me & now a year and a half later it is haunting me again.
Here's what happened. My parents were just finalizing a divorce. My mom's dad & stepmom invited me, Brian, & MY DAD to a Thanksgiving dinner. That's right, they didn't invite my mom, my grandpa's child?? That's weird isn't it!!!!! But the three of us invited went anyway, destined to have a good time. The night started out okay, snacking on stuff & generally enjoying the hustle & bustle of my grandma and aunt in the kitchen and 2 of my young cousins being rowdy.
Then my grandpa starts talking to me about school. I went through some really hard times during college, especially in the final year of 2009. I was short on funding, struggled to pass 2 of my classes due to reality finally hitting that I had to do something called "work really hard", and just general shitty family life parents divorcing brother being raped sister having a baby ETCETERA!!!!!! making things frustrating. I also had no job & no income and had to ask for help from family/Brian & every day it really killed me and I hated myself! When I was facing the ultimatum of borrowing 6k from my family or failing school with ONE CLASS LEFT TO TAKE, I freaked out. I asked my family as much as it pained me & finally my mom's mom/stepdad helped me out. However, my mom's DAD & STEPMOM that we were visiting for t-giving said "we don't give money to family" & never spoke of it again. The bitch-move here is that they give my aunt/uncle's families tons of money/support when they need it, but basically my mom & I are shit in their eyes for some reason. Anyway...
I had just pulled through all that, gotten my shit together & was finally going to finish school, just had 1 class left to take! I had JUST started working at Starbucks and was really excited to have a job & one that comes with screaming benefits & insurance too! Awesome! Well, not according to my grandpa. He spent about 20 minutes belittling me; telling me that I'm worthless & that HE never failed a class in school so how dare I! HE never had trouble, so why should I. Everyone was really uncomfortable, but he continued. In the most condescending tones he would ask me why I'm not in Canada working on Stargate animation (seriously? lmao...) and be genuinely disappointed in me that I wasn't a high-up at Starbucks A MONTH AFTER I STARTED. He said a bunch of other shit too I forgot.....
Instead of being proud of my grit & ability to pull through shitty fucking life situations barraging me nonstop, he decided to pop a cork & tell me how awful & disappointing I am. A toast to Amber for being SO FUCKIN LAME SHE FAILED A COLLEGE CLASS AND GETS PAID AN HOURLY WAGE!! What a worthless member of our great family of successful people, not!
I proceeded to silently walk to the bathroom and cry for about 5 minutes. The rest of the night I ignored him as best as possible, and when my dad, Brian & I left, I lost it. My dad can't stand him after this whole ordeal, & I haven't been able to either. I haven't contacted or visited my grandparents since then, because I can't stand the thought of how I'd act or what I'd say if I had to see my grandpa again, especially if he acted like nothing ever happened.
But finally tonight, I was checking my old derelict hotmail account to see if I'd gotten a document from some school person & I noticed an email from my grandpa. The email is from like 2 months ago & I never saw it because I never check hotmail (it's 2011 remember!) The email is a very sincere yet rudely impersonal?? message explaining how some random guy in Oregon found a phone he thinks belongs to my mom and could I please pass the message on to her. Like he can't email his own daughter himself? Oh yeah, he disowned her. Anyway, at the end he signs off with "love to you" and I just...
Something really struck me when I read that, like... here's my grandpa who I have grown up loving my entire life. Despite horror stories I heard from my mom about her childhood, I always had nothing but love & admiration for my grandpa until that Thanksgiving night. He always treated me well and made me happy, told lots of jokes & made me feel like I was his special granddaughter! And even though he hurt my feelings really bad, I have just spent a year and a half completely trying to block him out of my life. For this one thing he did.
I suddenly can't stop dwelling on the fact that my blocking him out of my life for a year & a half is hurting him deeper than I can imagine. He has never been the type to to even so much as give the impression that his feelings are hurt, & that just makes me feel worse. I'm probably breaking his heart & he'd never say a word about it.
I don't know. I still don't really want to call him or anything, but at the same time I just feel so sad, guilty, miserable. It is really tearing me up over here :( I have every right to be mad at my grandpa for what he did, but was cutting him off for so long really the right thing to do?
I keep thinking about my entire childhood & how much I just loved him & how excited I would always be to go visit their house... and how one shitty event could make me do something so drastic. I can't even figure out my thoughts on this right now so I guess I'll stop writing.
In closing this was really just meant to be a vent but if anyone read this then thanks for taking the time out to do so. I would private it but I want the story available & I have no shame in admitting that I like advice/attention when I'm sad lmao... :( thanks
Thanksgiving 2009 was a miserable time for me & now a year and a half later it is haunting me again.
Here's what happened. My parents were just finalizing a divorce. My mom's dad & stepmom invited me, Brian, & MY DAD to a Thanksgiving dinner. That's right, they didn't invite my mom, my grandpa's child?? That's weird isn't it!!!!! But the three of us invited went anyway, destined to have a good time. The night started out okay, snacking on stuff & generally enjoying the hustle & bustle of my grandma and aunt in the kitchen and 2 of my young cousins being rowdy.
Then my grandpa starts talking to me about school. I went through some really hard times during college, especially in the final year of 2009. I was short on funding, struggled to pass 2 of my classes due to reality finally hitting that I had to do something called "work really hard", and just general shitty family life parents divorcing brother being raped sister having a baby ETCETERA!!!!!! making things frustrating. I also had no job & no income and had to ask for help from family/Brian & every day it really killed me and I hated myself! When I was facing the ultimatum of borrowing 6k from my family or failing school with ONE CLASS LEFT TO TAKE, I freaked out. I asked my family as much as it pained me & finally my mom's mom/stepdad helped me out. However, my mom's DAD & STEPMOM that we were visiting for t-giving said "we don't give money to family" & never spoke of it again. The bitch-move here is that they give my aunt/uncle's families tons of money/support when they need it, but basically my mom & I are shit in their eyes for some reason. Anyway...
I had just pulled through all that, gotten my shit together & was finally going to finish school, just had 1 class left to take! I had JUST started working at Starbucks and was really excited to have a job & one that comes with screaming benefits & insurance too! Awesome! Well, not according to my grandpa. He spent about 20 minutes belittling me; telling me that I'm worthless & that HE never failed a class in school so how dare I! HE never had trouble, so why should I. Everyone was really uncomfortable, but he continued. In the most condescending tones he would ask me why I'm not in Canada working on Stargate animation (seriously? lmao...) and be genuinely disappointed in me that I wasn't a high-up at Starbucks A MONTH AFTER I STARTED. He said a bunch of other shit too I forgot.....
Instead of being proud of my grit & ability to pull through shitty fucking life situations barraging me nonstop, he decided to pop a cork & tell me how awful & disappointing I am. A toast to Amber for being SO FUCKIN LAME SHE FAILED A COLLEGE CLASS AND GETS PAID AN HOURLY WAGE!! What a worthless member of our great family of successful people, not!
I proceeded to silently walk to the bathroom and cry for about 5 minutes. The rest of the night I ignored him as best as possible, and when my dad, Brian & I left, I lost it. My dad can't stand him after this whole ordeal, & I haven't been able to either. I haven't contacted or visited my grandparents since then, because I can't stand the thought of how I'd act or what I'd say if I had to see my grandpa again, especially if he acted like nothing ever happened.
But finally tonight, I was checking my old derelict hotmail account to see if I'd gotten a document from some school person & I noticed an email from my grandpa. The email is from like 2 months ago & I never saw it because I never check hotmail (it's 2011 remember!) The email is a very sincere yet rudely impersonal?? message explaining how some random guy in Oregon found a phone he thinks belongs to my mom and could I please pass the message on to her. Like he can't email his own daughter himself? Oh yeah, he disowned her. Anyway, at the end he signs off with "love to you" and I just...
Something really struck me when I read that, like... here's my grandpa who I have grown up loving my entire life. Despite horror stories I heard from my mom about her childhood, I always had nothing but love & admiration for my grandpa until that Thanksgiving night. He always treated me well and made me happy, told lots of jokes & made me feel like I was his special granddaughter! And even though he hurt my feelings really bad, I have just spent a year and a half completely trying to block him out of my life. For this one thing he did.
I suddenly can't stop dwelling on the fact that my blocking him out of my life for a year & a half is hurting him deeper than I can imagine. He has never been the type to to even so much as give the impression that his feelings are hurt, & that just makes me feel worse. I'm probably breaking his heart & he'd never say a word about it.
I don't know. I still don't really want to call him or anything, but at the same time I just feel so sad, guilty, miserable. It is really tearing me up over here :( I have every right to be mad at my grandpa for what he did, but was cutting him off for so long really the right thing to do?
I keep thinking about my entire childhood & how much I just loved him & how excited I would always be to go visit their house... and how one shitty event could make me do something so drastic. I can't even figure out my thoughts on this right now so I guess I'll stop writing.
In closing this was really just meant to be a vent but if anyone read this then thanks for taking the time out to do so. I would private it but I want the story available & I have no shame in admitting that I like advice/attention when I'm sad lmao... :( thanks