ER,
Thank you for your post, it is actually very helpful. DB yours, too.
I think what is happening in my life is since I now have a few years of sobriety underneath my belt I am realizing some ugly truths about my family (in particular, my sister) that I always kind of knew and never really dealt with. I had a traumatic childhood because of a sibling's death when I was very young, and my parents were good people but were wrapped up in their own pain. This was in the 70s when it wasn't very popular to get therapy of any sort, and my oldest siblings moved away and never really came to see about me and my next brother up, so we grew up seeing our parents in pain and unable to get much outside their pain to help us.
I viewed my sister almost as a parent, but if I am honest, she never really acted that way. Our age difference just made me latch onto her, but there wasn't much substantive there.
When my mother passed away a decade ago and both of my parents were gone, it was very difficult for me because my family just moved apart, or so it seemed to me. Maybe they were always like that more than I like to admit, but I felt a need to try to rally everyone together. It never worked. I am very close to all of my brothers, however, and I am thankful for that. My sister really shouldn't be a focus of mine, because again--if I face it--there was never really a time she was great to me. Thanks everyone. I think what is happening is I am finally coming to terms with the state of my family that has always probably been not as great as I had wished.