I heard from my aunt, on my dad’s side. Normally I don’t speak with that side of my family at all, the white side. My aunt is a racist, harmful person. Her unwanted message totally threw me, for half a day.
The most upsetting part of hearing from her was her asking if I was ok and if I needed anything. I kinda blew my top. Spouting afterward, I told my spouse what I need:
- For my aunt not to be a racist, harmful person.
- A functional family.
- For her to have given an actual fuck about me at any point in my life, from birth till now.
- For her to have been kind or helpful to my dad, her brother, and helped him on his journey of life.
- Meaningful support, understanding, backup that’s trustworthy and solid.
- For her not to have treated me like crap when I was a kid.
- For her to travel back in time and be mature, less selfish, more facing reality, more aware of what she was doing to me and other family members.
It hurts a lot that she was such a force of bad in my life, until I just stopped speaking to the white side of my family completely. I never found what I needed, from them. I tried to shine my light, but my light was unwanted.
Always I was too weird, too different, not appropriate, too queer, too sensitive, too emotional, too much. Really, I was too honest. I could never hide who was enough for them to be kind to me. It was hopeless.
And then she’s asking if I’m ok and if I need anything, like she ever cared. Maybe in a secret place inside her, she did care. But her behavior was terrible, and I couldn’t stick around, waiting for her to learn how to love me right.
humanity
I was talking about this aunt in my head, to a friend, explaining the situation. In my head, I referred to my aunt as a racist piece of shit. Then I thought, no–I’m angry, but she’s not a piece of shit. She’s a human.
The reason she is mean and harmful is probably that she had been treated like she was a piece of shit. I never want to act that way to her or anyone.
Letting someone abuse me is a bad idea–for me, for the other person, for the world. I need to preserve my energy, so I can do my life’s work and be who I am. I’m not going to stay close to that aunt and let her hurt me. But I want to give her basic respect, because I’m here on earth to love.
It’s a balance between keeping myself safe, vs being decent to everyone. Just about everyone who treats other people poorly has it justified in their head.
I don’t want to treat anyone poorly. I work to see the humanity in every person–kind and unkind people, crazy people such as myself, disabled and nondisabled people, workers, capitalists, angry people, peace people.
Thank you for staying true to your own life mission, whatever it may be, but hopefully it includes being a force of love to all of humanity.
