Family tension

Christine,

Sorry you had a depressing trip home. Remember, this is YOUR life to live as you choose. Nobody gets to decide for you how you want to live. It sounds like you have an active, fun life with your immediate family. You may never get your childhood family's "approval" but what is that worth, really? Isn't it more important that YOU approve of the way you are living your life? Isn't your happiness with your life more important than their happiness with your life?

Let them figure out their own issues and stew in their own juices. Keep creating the life you want. It's your birthright.

yeah, I love em in spite of everything.   I'm sure it's not different in almost every family, someone is gonna do something someone else doesnt like.  In my family they don't hold back, very to the point.  

Of course I eventually get over it.  I just wish they'd give me a bit of "oh, wow" factor there.  Usually just all I get is a harumph.  The little girl in me just wants to keep acheiving my parents' approval.   One race my parents came to, my dad couldn't wait to leave and had me going to the food tent for food for him when I told him, hey, there's still folks out on the course, I can't get my bike yet, and it's not right for me to get food for ya.   His attitude just soured my otherwise great race.     I don't think they will watch me race again. 

okay, now time to ignore housework and get to the pool!  Hey, beautiful day, dont wanna spend it all cooped up in here.  But my relatives would disagree with that, though...... 

I hear ya, Lucy. My parents are OK about it all. Oddly enough, my dad, the active one, thinks I'm nuts but is generally supportive and my mom, the sedentary, obese one, always asks me about my training and calls to congratulate me after races.

My sister, however, who lives here in town, is fairly obnoxious about it. She brags about me, but when she wants to go out, she gets very upset when I say "Can we start earlier? I have to get up early to train tomorrow morning." It almost seems like she's actively trying to thwart my efforts sometimes. She constantly declares my hobbies "boring", as though getting drunk and smoking a lot were thrilling! I mean, we're just in different places in life, but she chooses to put down where I'm at. I know it's an ill-aimed attempt to 'defend' her way of living (from what, I don't know... I don't really comment on her choice of activities), but it's just obnoxious.

But that's exactly what your family is doing too. They think that you must be looking down your nose at them and they feel insecure, so they attack your life and act like it's somehow intrinsically easier to be you. It's lame and it sucks, but both your family and my sister will eventually get over it and realize that we're not doing what we do as some sort of silent attack against them, it's just what we do. At least I hope so.