do you have a relationship with your family?

i have a very large family and talk to hardly any of them. nothing necessary “bad” happened in my upbringing but it wasn’t great either. my family is toxic and hostile and odd. my parents divorced when i was 4. but my dad was always present in my life. i love my dads side of the family. i don’t know many of them, but the ones i do know are amazing. my moms side however is weird as hell. i don’t know how to deal with it. my moms side is very religious. my mom had a baby outside of marriage so they always treated my dad weird. so when they were married they decided to stop associating with that side since they didn’t accept him. they divorced, we started going over there again. but when i got older and realized the truth, i stopped going. i realized how differently they treated us than the rest and i don’t want to tolerate that. but honestly i see how weird and distant my relationship with my close family is too. i’m 24 now. i have 4 older brothers who hardly speak to me. my parents and i hardly speak and

it’s always awkward when i see them. my cousins and i used to have sleepovers every other weekend, now we see each other once a year and it’s sooooo weird.

i *dreammm* of a beautiful, whole, happy, healthy family one day. i pray for it so bad. because i have such a hugeee family and yet none of us speak. is this normal? what do i need to do differently? family is SO incredibly important to me. i make an effort to show up for everyone yet no one shows up for me. it’s like should i give up the effort? and should i not put effort into my own healthy family in the future?

i moved states over 2 years ago and made an effort to drive home once a month to see everyone until NO ONE made an

effort to see me except my mom. so i stopped going home for anyone but her. because why must IIII be the only one to put it in effort and then every time they see me it’s “well

sarahgrace you should come home more, why don’t you ever visit?”

idk…