“In learning to stick up for myself and grow a bit of spine, in my thirties mind you, I realized that so many of the relationships and attachments we’re told are obligations are in actuality optional. I don’t have to love anyone if I don’t want to. I don’t have to spend time and energy on people I don’t want to. That includes my DNA relatives, even if the expectations of society and those people are “family comes first”.
Sometimes it doesn’t come first. Sometimes it should come dead last, after gargling gravel and an afternoon spent being waterboarded.”