At least they're not the Borgias

Family is always...politically complicated. And I've always hated politics. Faced with a knot of family relationships, I'm more prone a Gordian knot solution rather than slowly unraveling the tangled threads, and to hell with the consequences. I don't have to patience, nor do I care enough about anyone beyond my immediate family (with a few notable exceptions). And even that circle of those I love drive me crazy sometimes.

Not, I suppose, my most endearing trait.

Every year, I am taken to task about something I've said to some family member or another over the annual Christmas because it was unwittingly biting. This year it is no exception. And every year I find that no matter how inoffensively the telling-off is stated, it never fails to raise my hackles because at the end of the day, I am being told that I should care about the feelings of some people when I just don't. And sometimes I wonder when I stopped caring, or if I ever cared at all.

Just because I share some of your genes, does this automatically mean I have to like you?

Sometimes I wonder if some people just aren't meant to be family people. I don't seem to know how to be part of one.