Family?

Let me start by saying that I am uncomfortable even thinking about this family stuff, so it's amazing that I have the chops to write about it. I am a firm believer that childhood is just a time in life, not necessarily the one true best time in life. I am fortyish, and I have been an adult longer than I was a child. I am also blessed with a wonderful, fulfilling life, and I give myself some credit for having made it here, as well as some really good luck. So, onto the painful part: my family.

No, no, not my real family, not my husband and my boys and my friends and my friends who are like family and like that. The other family, the one I came from. My mom is having a family reunion next weekend, and I and the boys are flying cross country to go. We leave on a Friday and return on a Monday, and it took all my will power to go at all. They are all nice enough people, but they don't mean a lot to me. I was talking to my brother about this, and I realized it boiled down to two questions I wish I could ask.

For those of the generations older than me, I have this question:
"Remember when my dad walked out on my mom and she had to pretend to her boss that she was still married and she had to work full time and finish school full time and keep up the house and me and my brother were left a lone a lot and had to play by ourselves with the door locked and the curtains down so no one would know we were alone and no one was allowed to play with us anyway, because we came from the broken house? Remember how I had to wear a lot of hand me downs from my brother and how he was sick in the hospital a lot and when we left the milk out and it spoiled it was hard for my mom to buy more? Remember then? Where the hell were you?"

For those of my generation:
" You know how the economy of this state has been horrible for as long as anyone can remember, and it's really hard to keep a job or make a living and it's hot as hell in the summer and cold as hell in the winter and the sun doesn't shine for more than sixty days a year? Why are you still here? Are you stupid, or something?"

I suspect it would put a damper on the small talk, though, so how about those Tigers? ( Oh, wait, the sports teams are losers, too...)

edited to add: non of them knit, quilt, crochet, rubberstamp,scrapbook or anything else. No beaders, no sew-ers, nope, nope, nope. Grim. I should have DNA testing done...