There are times in life when people will disappoint you. Be it a friend or a significant other, it is bound to happen at least once or twice. There is, however, one kind of disappointment that hurts more than the others: family. Maybe they broke a promise, or told a lie, or worse yet, maybe they just weren’t the person you thought they were. Family tends to hurt the most, because they are the people that you believe in the most.

Growing up, I was taught that family is the most important thing. You stand by your family, you take care of them. Family is one of those constant things in life that will never change, so even if you don’t always like them, you do always love them. For the first time in my life, however, a member of my family has disappointed me so deeply, that I find myself struggling to overcome it. It wasn't all at once, these things rarely are. It was a series of small transgressions and disappointments, all building up to one grand let down. A person can ignore, and a person can forgive, but it is incredibly hard to forget.

Throughout this experience, I have felt angry and confused, but mostly it makes me sad. My whole life, I have loved and believed in this person, and now I realize they have not felt the same. But I have learned that even though there are bound to be people who let me down in my life, the good far outweighs the bad. I have sisters and parents who love me and cherish me just as much as I do them. I have friends who have become family, and family who are also my friends. I still believe in my heart that family is the most important thing, and I won’t stop believing and trusting in them. I also believe, however, that I have the right to choose who affects my life and my emotions, and sometimes you have to let people go in order to live a happy, healthy life.