Why is it your own “blood” does not validate you?  My writing growing up was always taken for granted by my immediate family–my mom and dad and two sisters.  In the beginning it was my letter writing.  In the sixties I started keeping a journal.  In the late seventies I wrote poetry.  And now I am going on the fifth year of keeping a web site and blog.  Both of my parents are now dead.  I am not sure if my two sisters ever go on my web sites.  They usually don’t comment on them.  My writing is who I am, what is going on which is important to me.

Gratefully my wife cares about my writing, as well as other friends.  I found out I had a talent for making people laugh at open mikes.  And that is a validation of my writing although humor is not the only type of writing I do.  I keep getting hits on my web sites and that is encouraging.  And occasionally I get a poem published in a literary magazine.  I guess we choose our friends.  We can’t choose our family.  Up till his dying day my father who lived until ninety-two was more impressed with money than anything I wrote.  I was a failure in that area.  That still hurts.  Sometimes you have to go outside of your family for validation.  And that was my case.

Sometimes our families know us too well (and don’t).  I am just referring now to the family I grew up–particularly my two sisters and my parents (though both dead).

Why is it your immediate family dismisses your gifts?  You have to get validation from the outside?

I remember the last conversation I had with my Dad.  He was much more impressed with the million his future son-in-law made selling his company than anything I did.

It is true I was not successful in making money (or amassing a fortune) but I spent a lifetime writing and none of that mattered.  Only Money.

My two sisters also take my gifts for granted.  Maybe, that is why we have to make friends—people who are not blood.  They choose to be our friend.

They are attracted to us by who we are although it is still disappointing to me that I never was truly appreciated by the family I grew up with.