"You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family"

I love my friends, even the ones I didn't choose.  You can't always choose your friends when you are put with 5 total strangers to live with in university halls but even those I loved.  I love my family, I think I was extremely lucky with the parents I was given, and even though we had a rough few teenage years I get on well with my brother and my little brother looks up to me like a second mother.  But then there is the question of step family, surely you should be allowed a say in them?  But then there is also the saying that you can't choose who you fall in love with.  It started when I was about 10.  Mummy left daddy for the school caretaker.  I hated him.  He split up my family.  He was old enough to be my grandad.  And in the first few years he could get a bit scary when he mixed his drinks.  But without him I wouldn't have my little brother.  And he has changed a lot, and I have grown up a lot and no longer see him as the man who stole mummy from daddy.  I wouldn't change him and I am happy to have him as my step father.  I always wanted father to be happy, I wanted to see him move on.  First he tried it on with a lesbian, obviously that didn't work out for him so he just accepted her as his best friend.  Then he started going to gay clubs with her, as far as I know (and want to know) he remained straight.  Then came the mid-life crisis when he brought home Helen the 22 year old, quite worrying when he suggested that she could help me revise for my German GCSE, after all it wasn't that long ago that she did hers.  Then came Pauline.  The step mother.  She seemed shy, never really spoke to me.  And then off I went to university.  Her and the two ugly step sisters moved in a week later and took over my bedroom.  Not the best start to the family relations.  When I came home during holidays I accepted that it was hard for us to talk because we had missed the crucial weeks early on getting to know each other.  Since then nothing has changed.  We got a bigger house so I could have a bedroom again and a conservatory was built so that fatty could have a bedroom.  And here is where today's story truly begins as I have been over the other dramas in other blogs.  Fatty has moved out.  She has moved in with her boyfriend and his mother, which I barely count as moving out but she is gone.  So the conservatory is now being put to its true use.  But it has a lock on it.  A lock that I never understood, nobody else has keys for their bedroom... it may have been downstairs but it was still understood that it was a bedroom so why would we want to go raiding it?  I optimistically, very wrongly, assumed that the lock would now be gone.  After all, a conservatory is a standard family room isn't it.  A room for general use.  How very wrong I was.  It is not a conservatory.  It is a room only for the step mother.  It has remained locked since fattys departure, only left unlocked after father has been in there.  I have never felt welcome.  And now this powergame played by an immature 40 year old has made me feel truly unwanted in my own home, like a filthy germ to be sprayed and obliterated as soon as possible.  But how do you tell your dad that the woman he loves makes you feel so awful?  That one of the main reasons for a lot of your tears is his darling wife?  I don't know.  And I don't know what good it would do anyway.  In 4 years we have barely spoken, I can't imagine knowing that I don't like her is going to open up the conversational channels.  I don't feel I can talk to him, I hate to upset him and add stress to his life.  But I don't feel I can carry on like this either; I'm his little girl, his little pumpkin, surely he wouldn't want to be left in the dark about how it makes me feel....

In other news, I had a WONDERFUL weekend with the boyfriend.  Even when we don't do anything, which is a regular occurence as my town has very little to do, I still feel happy.  I feel little or no need to cry.  I finally opened up to him on Friday about everything that bothers me.  I have tried very hard to not burden him with my problems, and not let on to him just how down in the dumps I have felt at times.  He isn't the depressive type at all and I always feel like he hates it when I cry.  But he told me to open up.  I felt a lot better being able to talk to him.  He thinks I'm a total nutjob but he loves me and I feel a lot better knowing that he is there for me and I can talk to him...... still going to keep it to a minimum though, I can be down so much sometimes that he would end up having to see a doctor himself to deal with all my emotional baggage.  Then on Saturday he proved himself as the best boyfriend in the world by buying me the new season Burnley shirt... which I wear with pride at all times in the house, going to give it a few weeks before it gets a public showing though, with it only going on sale on Friday I don't want to look like a poser.   But for now I shall wear it lots and remember just how wonderful he is at all times, even though he has left me with a 2 litre bottle of Pepsi to drink.  I already feel like quite a bloated bear.

Jobs Applied For_ 3
Tears_ 2
5-a-day?_ I tried but all my bananas were already open, eugh!