Holiday memories as we draw nearer to Christmas.

In every family there are favorites and rejects and even though the adults claim that all children are equal it's plain as day that is not the case. In my family my big brother was favored over me and to this day that still holds true. It wasn't only my parents who favored him over me it was everyone else too for the most part. If there was a hierarchy I was at the bottom with another cousin of mine (the juggalo) who also was not favored as much. My brother and majority of my cousins were jocks or were active in other activities such as dance or church groups and the adults always gushed over them. My parents are divorced so holidays were split up but most of them I spent over on my dad's side of the family either at my grandparents house or my aunt's house. There were times I felt like I only mattered until someone who actually mattered stepped into the room. What I mean by that is I would get talked to and interacted with only until someone else who was more important came into the room and then I went right back to being ignored. As a little kid it didn't bother me much because I didn't really pick up on it at first but as I got older say around middle school I began to notice and it really started to sting. There were a few times I self isolated from the rest of the family and ended up getting chewed out for it by my dad. The first time I sat in the basement by myself at my aunt's house watching buffy the vampire slayer reruns while everyone else was upstairs doing thanksgiving things. My dad came downstairs and proceeded to chew me out telling me to get my ass upstairs and go be part of the family I was around 12/13 at the time. Flash forward to 2005 I pulled a similar stunt but this time on easter. I was upstairs at my grandparents house watching cartoons while everyone else was hanging in the basement and my dad stormed upstairs to yell at me for not being downstairs with everyone else and for watching cartoons at my age. Mind you I was in my teens and we actually got into an argument over cartoons and age limits. Fast forward to my early 20s I was sitting with family not saying anything. I was at the kitchen table at my aunt's house with my sketchbook drawing something when my uncle came over. I was expecting to get lectured but instead he actually was interested in what I was drawing. He said he always knew I had talent which made me happy to hear but internally I was thinking ok but how come you never said anything until now? Is it because I'm alone at the table looking downcast or something?

I should be used to family gatherings by now but it's just nobody is proud of me at all. Nobody ever has anything good to say about me I swear. Whenever something good does happen and I decide to open up and share it....crickets. I don't even know why I show up sometimes to these things. Well I show up for my nieces and the dogs but I am really not looking forward to sitting there and just being invisible or getting the pitied oh......when asked about my life. What if you just don't show up? I've considered that option and that would create more grief than I am equipped to handle at this time.

My mom's side of the family is similar but it's not as bad. However they're all very church oriented and I am not so that's a whole other ball of wax and some of them have moved out of state.

It's sort of funny now that nearly all of my cousins are married with children to see that the same cycle of behavior has continued onto the next generation.

On another random tangent I have also been ignored and treated like an afterthought a lot in my adult years especially after my brother got married and had kids. He will get invited for all these things and I will get the occasional invite. My grandpa on my dad's side died a decade ago and my grandma on his side died two years ago and when they were going through my grandparents house to remove things I was never asked to come over and pick out what I wanted to keep. Nobody told me anything and I only found out because I went to my brothers for something and noticed the coffee table looked a lot like our grandparents coffee table. He admitted it was theirs and told me about picking out what he wanted and how dad invited him over to the house. Thanks for the invite or lack thereof. The only thing I really wanted was this one birdhouse I was super fond of when I was a kid. My grandparents house backed up to some woods and they had all sorts of birdhouses I admired and loved to look at when I was a kid. The one I really wanted was the acorn shaped one. It just bothers me how little anyone thinks of me. I feel pathetic sometimes because I feel like I'm constantly screaming for approval from family but I will never get it and should just give up but I am way too stupid to just stop for some reason.