This morning I recorded a podcast with my dad. We get along all the time now, for the most part. He still sometimes says things that are annoying and he loves to talk. He loves attention more than anyone else I know. It used to make me so mad when it seemed like he was trying to outshine me when I was just a kid. Now, it’s not such a big deal. He understands me so much better than he used to and he is trying to do better.
But one thing he does that REALLY grated on me today was something he said after we were recording. He was trying to say that he was proud of my brother and I. Cool, that’s fine. But he couldn’t just say that. He started telling me about my aunt and said, “Your FAVORITE aunt, the one by marriage…” Now, don’t get me wrong, I have a ton of aunts for some reason and very few uncles. Neither of my father’s sisters got married and my mother’s sister also didn’t want to settle down with anyone.
But this aunt he’s referring to I actually like. I’ve always liked her, even when they tried to make me feel like I shouldn’t like her because she insulted my parents or my brother or something like that. The thing is that I never saw these supposed insults. I don’t even remember her saying anything nasty at all. She wasn’t overly nice either, but I just don’t remember her being the evil bitch my parents ALWAYS made her out to be. There’s tons of pictures of me sitting with her and my uncle from my early years and I do vaguely remember talking to her as a very small child and thinking she was fun.
Anyway, he says “She was always bragging about how awesome their girls turned out and you two just blew them out of the water.”
Are you freaking kidding me?? Ok, yes, their older daughter has had a rough life and worked hard to get where she is. She made poor choices with dropping out of high school and getting into drugs. But she’s doing ok now. She has been for at least 12 or so years. She’s been with the same guy that whole time, they have a daughter who seems to be doing great, and she’s enjoying her life.
My younger cousin is a damn rockstar. She’s a social worker with child protective services and she works long days advocating for children and helping families out all day every day. She loves her job and she has a great life with her husband and daughters. She’s a very kind person and I’ve never, ever had a problem with her. So why the hell does my success have anything to do with her success? Why should I feel that I’m “better” than her for any reason? I do not. I also don’t spend a whole lot of time comparing myself to her because she’s a kid. She’s like 8 years younger than me and was always at least one developmental stage behind me as kids.
When I tried to tell him that I think they’re doing great and living their best lives, he kept cutting me off to tell me how much better I am. I DON’T NEED THAT. I just don’t compare myself to my cousins EVER. Same team, one fight. Why the heck would I want to set myself in opposition to anyone in my family like that? Why do my parents talk about all of us like that? Why can’t my parents just live their own life and stop being so critical of everyone else’s?
It’s like he’s on repeat sometimes, telling me over and over how much more successful I am than his sister, or some other relative. Why can’t he just be proud without mentioning anyone else? It’s really irritating and hopefully he understand what I was trying to say, which is to stop yukking on someone else’s yum. At the end of the day, we are all in this together and comparison like he kept trying to do only cheapens the compliment he was trying to give.
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