Ah... Family.  What to say about such a nebulous organization...

Related by "blood" or by marriage, these are the people who we should interact with for the rest of our lives.  People together due to of some sort of karmic debt, who may have nothing in common.  Yet somehow, we must love more than others who we interact with.  Family can be so wonderful, yet cause so much torment.  Maybe I'm just feeling bitter today.  I dread having to go home to see my family and cause yet another shouting match.  I am told that things will get better as I age - but I can't see it.  Some how the flow of time will give me wisdom or tolerance.  I wonder today how much I even love my family.  Do I love them more than everyone else?   I believe spiritually that I should love everyone, and I try to.  But... somehow I must love my family more.  I have recently come to the realization that I feel quite bitterly towards my biological parents.  My father - for feelings of abandonment, and my mother - for lack of understanding, lack of compromise.  Who is to say who is right?  Perhaps we all are right in our life choices.  Perhaps... although I can't quite seem to make myself feel this way.  I do care, unfortunately.  If I did not care, things would not bother me that do bother me.  I envy those around me who, at least, appear to get along well with their family.  I do not, and I suspect will not ever be as close as some desire.  Who do I love? How do I even know who I love?  How is anyone really supposed to know?  Do I feel only obligation pulling on me - or the desire to please those around me?  

In anycase:

My brother, John Su	He chose to keep the last name of our biological father so his last name is different from mine.  He is a socialite who seems to know lots of people everywhere.  Maybe even you know who he is.  :)  Very charismatic  - in his own way, he has, likely, over a hundred of friends and acquaintances.  We used to be very close, but we had a falling out a while back.  I find it hard, still, to trust him.  I don't know why.  Sometimes I feel bad that we are not as close as we once were.  I used to think that I was important to him, but now I think that it is the fact that I am his sister that he tries to keep me important.  We don't relate so well anymore, I think, because we aren't forced to spend much time together.  He is very devoutly Christian and very active in his church.  I, on the other hand, have changed my views significantly away from the fundamentalist Christianity and probably can not be called a Christian anymore - although I do believe in, I think, the core Christian beliefs.  He had decided to live his life in a way to make others happy, or not cause too much conflict, where I have decided to live my life as I chose - and hope others can just deal with it.		webpage:
My half-brother, Benjamin	A tormented youth, or so it seems to me.  He is currently very into the Goth movement.  I visited him once in Houston - a strange affair.  I wanted to see him, but had no desire to see my father.  So it was all about sneaking around, meeting in a park, dropping him off, I forget where...  Talking, mostly.  He looked so different from my memories on first glance, but still was the same.  Not the spoiled kid I remembered, but his mannerism, so reflective of his mother's.  I did not like him when I was a child because he was the son of my father, and I hated everything to do with that side of my family.  Now, he is almost an adult, and I feel badly for how I treated him.  I know that as cruel as I was, it probably did not light a candle to the mis-treatment and non-understanding my father has given him.		webpage: http://plastic-dream.org/zort/lament.html
My half-sister, Emily	It recently hit home how ironic this was that I call my half-siblings, related through my father, my "half-siblings."  My boyfriend calls his half-sister, his sister.  He grew up with her and feels that way.  I, on the other hand, think of them as half-related.  Isn't that weird?  I think they feel this way as well.  Strange how we define things by words is so reflective of how we experience things.  What does it mean to be half-related anyway?  More than cousins, but less than full-blooded relatives.  Strange... Yet, I here again, feel some how obligated to them - to know them, help them, get along with them.  ... Something to think about.