Family Myths, and My Role in the Family

I can't think of any family myths at the moment so I'm going to start with my roll in my family. If i had to pick one role in my family it would be best described as short fused decision maker. Most people say i try to please everyone, which is very true, but not always in the same way. What i mean is that while in my family dynamic i do try to please everyone, but it takes a lot less time before i get fed up with indecision and just make a decision. While do this outside my family as well it is not nearly as evident as it is when I'm with my family. A common occurrence of this is when my family and I are trying to go out to dinner, but everyone wants something different. At first i attempt to please everyone by coming up with someplace that will fulfill all our wants (which commonly doesn't exist) or i try to pick someplace everyone can agree on for the time being. Despite my best efforts no magical restaurants appear and of course no one can agree on somewhere. The nest step is where my short fuse normally runs out. Now we are sitting there my sister is dead set on getting her way, my mom says she doesn't care, my dad is fed up with the argument and making threats to not go at all, and that leaves me. I truly don't care at this point, but i don't want to see my sister get her way mostly so i just get mad and yell out someplace and say that's what we're doing no arguing. Then most of the time we will all march, irritated to the car and go to where i mentioned. I think i do this cause of my distaste for stress. when the situation gets too stressful i find a quick remedy. This is not the best way to go about things, but it is always the easiest at the time and will typically result in the least punishment. This pattern of events occurs often in my family for almost any topic imaginable. I think some people see this as a good thing, because it gets things done. While others feel this is a shortcoming due to my irritated demeanor when i make these decisions.

I had a hard time coming up with a myth about my family, simply because i could not think of anything that involved the entirety of my family. As i thought about it more the myths i could come up with had to deal with my perception of people in my family. I think one of the biggest myths i remember is my perception of my grandpa as i was growing up. My grandpa passed away when i was only 2 years old, so i have no personal memories of him. The only solid information i knew about him when i was young was that he fought in WWII in and airborne division as a paratrooper. I always idealized this as a soldier jumping out of the airplane and fighting as soon as he hit the ground. It was years later over a grilled cheese sandwich lunch i discovered he was actually an engineer, and while he did jump out of planes it was his job to design and place airstrips, and the jumping was just a cost effective way to get him there. As a young boy this was kind of a let down since i had made my grandpa into somewhat of a warrior in my head. As i reached my later years i began to find out many ways in which my grandpa was not the hero i had once pictured. My dad is the youngest of three boys, and while the all enjoyed athletics, my grandpa was overly competitive as there coach and made sure that winning was the most important thing which did end up creating great athletes, as my dad was twice a state golden gloves champion and a center for Ohio University football, but it took the fun out of playing. He pressed these sort of misled views on my father later in life when it came to careers. Where again he told my dad money was the most important thing and shot down my dads aspirations to be a teacher and coach. among these shortcomings were also personal issues dealing with alcoholism and ill behavior toward my grandma. After learning of these things my warrior image of my grandpa faded into a much more realistic, less flattering feeling toward him. part of me wishes i could have held on to these mislead admiration's of my youth, but i also realize that this truth is very revealing toward things that i myself have lived through.