Twisted Tolstoy

'All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.'

Very true, in my experience.  At least in so far as most happy families seem to share certain core dynamics that help them stay on even keel in rough situations.  I can't vouch for that, having come from a massively unhappy family.

How unhappy?  Massively barely begins to describe.  Yet, to Mom, all was well & right & wonderful.  She saw what she wanted, edited out anything that went contrary to her preferred reality.  While she knew we were far from a happy family, Mom couldn't bring herself to see the specific places where we messed up.  What you can't see, you can't fix. 

My own big AH HA! moment came a couple years before Mom's 2001 passing.  It hit me that it wasn't just me, that none of her children had a sense of place within the family.  We were equal in our unhappiness, our sense of not belonging.  

Most importantly, I realized that no one was coming out ahead, no one was happy with our hapless helpless hopeless situation.  It didn't register with Mom & for good reason - her image of a whole family was blown out of the water in her late teens, when her father died & she was left with a surviving parent that made our family seem a paragon of healthy dynamics.

That eye-opening moment was a life changer for me.  For decades, my assumption had been that if I was unhappy, surely someone else was happy it was so, that while I felt outside of the core group, the others felt part of a greater whole.  

Not so.

Not even Mom was really happy.  She hadn't felt part of a greater whole since Dad died at the tender age of 63.  Yep, we were a group of genetically connected outsiders.  

A holiday present I now give to any readers I may have is this bit of twisted Tolstoy - each unhappy family is typically made up of unhappy people.  Some unhappy families might have a clever ringmaster who is made happy by pulling everyone else's strings, but I believe that's rare.  From what I've experienced in my own unhappy birth family, what I sense from others I've known, most unhappy families are filled with others who are as similar in feeling broken off from a whole as they are different in the causes of their brokenness.   

My best guess is that my sibs felt as separate, as invisible, as UN as I did.  While that might sound awful, realizing it was liberating.  Instead of seeing myself as the only dejected rejected miserable one while some unrevealed other was finding some joy in our ickiness, it was clear we were members in equal standing of the same floundering & flummoxed clan.  

If you are a valued member of a happy family, bask in the joy of your holiday. God blessed you, every one!

If you are part of an unhappy one, step past the despair.  Realize that the others probably feel as much or even more dejected & separate as you.  

Be as emotionally generous as you can, even if others find it suspect.  Don't do it for them, but for yourself.  And not just one year or only at the holidays,  Always. Without any hope of changing anything.  The only thing you can change is you.  

This holiday season & throughout the coming years, give Tolstoy a twist - remember that all unhappy families are made up of members who are unhappy in different ways.  Do what you can to increase your level of happiness within your family.  Don't make it depend on anyone else.  And don't expect miracles.  But you never know...