parents

This summer, is allowing me to see how broken my family is. No, we're not poor. We're doing alright financially, health-wise, and we don't want to kill each other. My mom and dad aren't getting a divorce, my brother and I aren't fighting, and I'm not fighting with my parents either.

But something is wrong when I'm struggling to speak up at the dinner table. I'm sure every awkward silence breaks my moms heart, but there's only so much you can say when the only thing your parents care about is comfort. A healthy lifestyle, a good and secure job, good money...and lots of "family time."

My mom thinks the solution is more "family time." Well, she doesn't say it, but I think that's what she thinks. The whole Delaware/New Jersey split. Given, I'd rather be hanging out with friends than with family at this point. I guess I could keep remarking on individual bad instances, but really it comes down to me thinking that my parents don't understand me anymore.

That if I had to explain my actions, which in my head usually have some sort of purpose to them, that it would be too much too explain to them. And if I were to explain to them, they wouldn't get it. I tried explaining Urbana to my dad, and he just wanted me to stay home. He brought up some pretty bad reason, that the flying at that time is really busy. I know that he wanted to say that I should stay home more, but he probably just didn't want to say that.

...so I signed up for Urbana without his consent.

Sigh, I don't want to keep rambling. I just want to be able to love my parents. I don't want to feel like I treat my home like a hotel, and my parents like a money source. How sad is it that the conversation I had with Angela today, someone 3 years younger than me, was probably better than most of my conversations with my parents.