Friends>Family

I have a brother, and a sister, and mom, and a step-dad. I don't think of them as family. I have a Jack, and a Jeremy, and a Will, and a Kailey. I think of them as my family. My mom and step dad both have facebooks, but neither of them have pictures of me. They update about how proud they are of my sister, for buying a car. I've never been told I make them proud, and I have 2 cars, a husband, a house, a son, and a rather comfortable lifestyle. I didn't graduate from high school, but it wouldn't matter if I had. They wouldn't be proud, because they know it was easy for me. They're proud of my sister, because she wasn't the "gifted" one, and they knew she had to work harder. I took all junior classes as a freshman, and had the ability to graduate as a junior. No one said they were proud though, no one pushed me. It's hard to want to keep going when you have no one behind you. I do anything and everything for my blood relatives, and don't ask anything in return. The second I can't do something for them, though, I am the bad guy. I have great friends though, and they make up for my lack of family. They support me in more ways than one, and I am so grateful for that. This military life is new, and difficult at times. I know I can rely on my friends to get me through it. Since Jeremy left, my cousins Kate and Samantha are the only two family members to have visited me. To ask how my day has been and to lend an ear. My grandma hasn't said one nice thing to me this whole year, and it hurts my feelings, because I used to look up to her. I got her face tattooed on my back as a gift for her 50th anniversary with my grandpa. All she cared about was how much I paid for it. That's the way life goes, I guess?