What kind of relationship do you have with your stepmother? Is there anything you wish you could change? Alternatively, do you wish you could have had the chance to meet your grandmother? If you had known her, do you think you would have liked her?
So many questions bombarding him at once; all of which were too personal for his liking. Admittedly, these were questions he often pondered about to himself, and to hear them directed right at him from the lips of another took him off guard. With the mention of his own family, blood-related or not… It couldn’t be helped that he assumes the words to hold some deeper connotation. As if accusing him.
If he had the chance to change things? He would’ve wished to let go of his regrets in a heartbeat. He would have wished that he took alternative choices; choices without regrets— or at least, choices that he would have least regretted. But, the more reasonable part of him held him back. ‘What if it backfired?’, was what he’d think.
And his grandmother… it certainly would have been nice if he could meet her. Ah. His brother had told him stories about the times they’ve spent together; him, his grandmother and his mother, all three of them together. Through their struggles, through their happiest moments, their grievous, painful moments… If only. If only things were different…
Thinking about the ‘what-if’s and ‘what could have been’s always left him conflicted.
And that’s why he dislikes dwelling too much in the past.
“--My relationship with my stepmother is what it is; she’s a stepmother to me.”
“She’s a part of my family.”