Family is a circle of friends who love you

I wish I blogged more consistently. Because there's some shit that really bugs me and I think I would get it out of my system if I could write about them from time to time. I have this shirt that Catherine gave me with a painting of people holding hands in a circle, and the caption that says, "Family is a circle of friends who love you". And I used to really believe that. But I don't know what family is anymore. I can't get over the fact that I communicate with my family using electronic means all the time and most of them NEVER reply. Once in a great while, Aaron might, but that's after I have nagged the shit out of him about it. I am so damn tired of asking people long long after the fact if they received my voice mail message, e-mail, text, or tweet -- and I know they have -- and they'll say, "Oh yeah" or "Oh, what one was that?" or "I don't know, let me look" -- that one from Rick always gets to me. I've just decided to quit asking about it now. I'm not even going to try to communicate. I should just take care of myself and forget about it. I don't understand why I care about connecting with other people. Okay, that's not true - obviously I care about connecting with others because I miss the connection with others. I crave having a closeness because I thought these people were my family and I thought we had things we could share together. When we're together, I feel that closeness, but I guess once we're apart, there's no thought on their part of me. So my attempts at communication are nothing more than an annoyance, and an eye-rolling inducer. I want to confront them all about this, but don't know how to do this without the entire situation becoming a completely emotional outburst on my part. I would be accused of making a mountain out of a molehill, I suppose. I just think it's completely rude if nothing else to ignore me like that. I wouldn't ignore anyone's attempt to contact me - well not anyone I knew anyway. But I think I'm going to start - perhaps that's the thing I need to start doing - just replying to them but never hitting 'send'. So that way I can always say, "Oh, let me look" if they ask, and then having the perfect excuse. (I forgot to hit send) IF THEY EVER ASK. But of course they won't, because they don't care enough to ask... I guess I take all of this too seriously. I should probably just diversify my family a bit more and spread myself a bit thinner. I guess I just put too much onto these people. As much as I try, I just don't know how to have a relationship--of any kind. It's really hard. The older I get, the harder they get. I try to figure out what I need and what I should give as I get older and more experienced. It just doesn't seem to get any easier. I continue to hurt other people's feelings and get my feelings hurt by others.