I am in my 30's. I live with my kids and my husband. I have a family I care for and support. We share love daily in my home. Yet, I long for the thing I will never have. 

This week was my mom's birthday. I have had plans for weeks that this weekend I was going to go to their house with my family and take my mom out for a night of dinner and a movie for her birthday. She was so excited.... until my brother stepped in. 

My brother and his wife are fighting again, so all of a sudden he wanted to come stay at my parents and help them out. It doesn't matter that he doesn't want to 99% of the time and would rather bitch at me for not doing enough to help them and complain to me that he could do it better. But when my brother and his wife are fighting, he flees to their home to retreate from his wife in any way he can. He has beens stayng with my parents for a week now. Oh, don't worry about him missing out on work - he doesn't have a job and my parents send him money regularly to pay for his family bills. 

So he went up to stay with my parents, and while he was there he earned his keep by cutting fire wood and cleaning things he has stored there since forever. 

It is not that I am mad that he actually went up and helped out my parents. Frankly I wished he would do so more often. It is what it causes me that upsets me. My mother worries abut my brother greatly and having him around makes her alhimers worse. Each day I call, and this week, she forgot it was her borthday, forgot to make dinner, and couldn't remember if my brother had stayed the one night. These seem small, but they are signs of a bad day. 

The other thing it causes is my parents to cast me aside. My parents rely on me for so much. My brother is not good for much, and certainly not relyable or dependable.... but when he is around, there is suddenly no communication with me, and assumptions that my brother will take care of everything. This usually leads to bills not getting paid, drs appointments being missed, and many other things. 

So what.... why do I care - because they are my parents - that's why. 

But why else.... because they don't want me. They have the child they love and miss so much, so I am not needed. So what did that means this weekend - my mom telling me that John was going to take her out for her birthday, so it didn't matter that my kids had made her gifts or planed to bake her a cake or even that my brother would use my mom's money to take them out... what mattered was that her favorite child was there for her birthday, so I didn't need to be. 

It makes me want to scream! I want to  say - fine - let him take you to your next Drs appointment, too. Let him ballance your check book. Let him get off his lazy ass and do something. 

Nope. I smile and say, if that's what you want mom. 

In church we are studying the prodical son story and currently we are on the older brother - talking about how we get caught in these traps of being like the older brother when we expect that our good behavior will equal good things in this life or that we deserve anything from our following of the right and rightious path. We then choose resentment, anger, and bitternes when positive outcomes do not come from positive attempts, which is not a G-dly thing but temptations from our human-ness. 

Well. I al the older brother in the story. I have done everything asked of me and all I have ever gotten was screwed. And continued to be unloved and unwanted by my parents.  

There have been times in my life that I have been able to choose something other than resentment, but then I get slapped in the face again and again, and I cling to it once more. 

How do I let it go? How do I accept that my parents don't love me or want me but only call me when they need something and I am useful. How do I move past the bitterness? How do I teach my own children not to feel this way when I can't stop?