In all honesty? There's a few things.
I found out that my uncle died a couple of days ago. I wasn't really close to the man, but he was close to my deceased grandpa and I had seen him more often than not back in the day. I always thought of him as a really lonely guy surrounded by family that ultimately didn't give a hoot about him. Of course, I was wrong; he was an old hermit and everyone knew that he liked it that way. Nearly his entirely family showed up while he was on his deathbed, which was comforting. It's a shame we couldn't make it back up to Ohio for the funeral.
I am a little pissed off at my folks (my Dad and my stepmother) for not telling me what was going down. They knew he had contracted bone-tissue cancer and he had been sick for months; they were expecting his demise. I wasn't. They did apologize to me when I pointed this out, so the brunt of my hurt is edged off.
On top of that, me visiting my parents opened up an old wound totally unrelated to everything else. It's...complicated. Soon after my parents and I talked about my uncle, I started asking for advice on what to do at my job so that I could not get demoted and I keep going higher. There was an expectation that he'd point out everything I did wrong in the scenarios I laid out for him, but it was just a horrible reminder.
All of my life, he's been the thing that grabbed me by the scruff of my shirt and threw me forward when I stopped moving. He also made it a point to correct me when as I was stumbling from the shove as well; straight and narrow. He did these things because he loved me, because he wants to protect me from being hurt. I know this. But...for once in my god**** life I would like him to say something POSITIVE to me. Now that I'm taking steps for myself, I just want him to say that he's proud of me. It's a silly thing to ask because he's not wired like that, but at the same time it hurts. It's probably one of the reasons I don't call or visit as often as I should.
Ugh, I apologize for being melodramatic. One of these days these walls o' text are going to be about some lovely lady who has swept me off of my feet or about how awesome everything is.