Were there ever cardboard people in your life? Real cardboard. There were in mine.

My mom dropped out of school to marry my dad, she didn't have to, it was a choice she made.  She had never been one to put much value in schooling.  My dad would have loved to be a school teacher, never had the money to go to school, may have not known really how to go about going to school and meant my mother.  Her dream was to have lots of children, she only had one brother and would have loved to have had a big family, maybe that is why she has so many of us and would have more if she could. She just turned 69 so should probably not have any more, she has had a stroke and my dad shows signs of Alzheimer's, which at least two of his aunts had so should be tested for it but he and my mother are pretty much doing an ostrich in the sand approach to it.  We children, as a whole, talk about trying to get him help but as they are both pretty opinionated and are for the most part in control of their facilities can't actually help either of them.  The bottom line is you can't help someone who won't ask for or accept your help.  She home schools her three youngest kids, the triplets. They can read, my dad has seen to that, but as my mom doesn't value schooling anymore than she ever has, that and some math is about all they know. I heard my dad say once "if you can read you can get by in this world", maybe all he could do was make sure they could read. This is another issue you can't or aren't allowed to approach her about, I think part of the home schooling stems from the fact that one of the triplets, in all probability, is high functioning autistic, but my mother won't accept it so keeping her at home helped anyone from find out or helping her.  Another thing most of my siblings are upset about, but if I say tried to do anything about the autism or the schooling I might just as well change my name and move to a foreign country,  I would be the devil and completely out of the family for good. I may be a coward, I don't know.

I always thought I had a totally regular family but in the last few years have come to the determination that my family, like most, is very dysfunctional.  I have issues with my mom, that probably will never be resolved, I would love to try, and when she had her stroke I got to go take care of her for several days.  I felt closer to her than I had in years.  I was heart broken to find with in a short time, Drama Queen destroyed the closeness my mom and I had obtained.  I am at peace, in ways, that I had that time, but would love to be close with my mom again but it probably won't happen. 

I search my heart alot to try and reconcile my adult issues with their roots in my childhood.   I am a yo yo dieter and always have been.  I hoard food, when it is on sale I buy it and have alot of back up food in my pantry.  I grow a garden and can all summer. I feel great fear when I don't have a supply of food in the cupboard.  We, at more than one time, nearly starved as children.  So, that helps explain it.  My mother loves you with food, Drama Queen buys love, IE, my mother's favorite child currently she has lots of "love" to give and my mom is on a fixed income.  I came from a large family and unlike little families where you can make nice little portioned meals, in a large family you get a buffet style dinner alot, you eat as fast as you can because if you don't someone else will.  My mothers first memory of my Grandfather Jim, my dad's dad, was him telling her the dinning rules at their house.  "All is fair at the table as long as you keep one foot on the floor" there were 8 children, alot of them raised in the depression, post depression and during the second world war, he was dead serious.  You could reach for or stab anything on the table if you had your foot on the floor.  I know where my food issues come from.  I really don't eat badly, I serve veggies, little sugar and am very contemplative about what I feed my family, they have very good eating habits; however I get to working on project or art and forget that I need to be active so get very sedimentary and my weight goes up and down.  I am not a snacker but I do fall in to comfort eating once in awhile.  All of this I know about myself and work on it when I can.

I have lots of issues, some times lots of them at once.  I don't blame my mother for who I am, I in  many ways I am who I am in spite of my mother or because of her, depends on the day.  My mother is a remarkable woman, but she is very self centered and takes everything personally.  She taught her daughters to do the same, I have realized it is one of my biggest failures and really work on overcoming my problems.  I may get there eventually but for now I am a work in progress.

I didn't have an imaginary friend as a child, I had to many siblings to have actually needed one.  Yogietheir cardboard back sides.  I never did catch one but I tried.  I actually don't know what that says about the lonely child I was, can you imagine being lonely in a great big giant family, I was.   I never found myself good enough to be in my own family, I still don't always.  I do in my family now, but not always with my childhood family.  I find myself falling into the same patterning with my friends.   Maybe that is why I have such a hard time making long term friendships.  I have lots of unanswered life questions, though I am a half century old.  Maybe the Lord will lead me to my answers as I go where he leads me in this life.  I find in many ways I feel at ease with me when I let him help me find the answers.  It is late and maybe I am morose or melancholy, not sure if I am or not, maybe just contemplative....... tomorrow.