Why is it sometimes that those who are the closest to us and that we are the closest to are so often the very people that we tolerate the least and forgive the least and also are those who tolerate us us the least and forgive us the very least? Why is it that perfect strangers are the ones that we grant merciful toleration and forgiveness for even the most heinous of uncivil acts and yet our very beloved family members or even close friends are also often the ones that we will cast out of our lives for the least infraction and often of an unwritten code of conduct that we suddenly come up with?
I have spent a miserable holiday season, perhaps one of the worse I have spent in years, from October to the end of December! First, you need to know that I absolutely despise the holidays because of somethings that happened to me in my formative years that I am only now beginning to remember in my quinquagenarian years! Second, you need to know that I am a full-time student and life as a student can be very stressful, anytime but most especially around the end of a semester---which the end of every fall semester occurs during the late autumn and early winter holidays! Third, you should also know that my youngest sibling has cut me off from his life twice now during the 12-week stretch from October to December this past year! So needless to say, my IBS kicked in BIG-TIME during the 2009 winter holiday season and I found myself barely surviving painful embarrassing attacks and accidents from day to day, the end of this past year ,more than was the usual!
I am not at all suggesting that I have any valid reasons to complain about my blessed life! I have a warm bed, a safe house, a good roof, clean clothes, good food, clean water, a car at my disposal and the means to procure, use and maintain all of these things that have been deemed to be essential to have a healthy existence and yet I have even more than all of this...I have the love of a good man who is true to me and our marriage vows! He cooks, he cleans, he shops, he does laundry, he does dishes, he changes our granddaughter's diapers and he has been the love of my life now for...going on 37 years! I know that I am blessed and have much to be grateful for BUT is it too much to ask to also get along with all 6 of my siblings? Well then, can I get along with...maybe most of them? I love my siblings so much and I think about them often. As I am the oldest child of this large family brood I also know when each of their birthdays are each year even though only my sister (who is the second child and in which is only 1y10m younger than I) and I keep in touch now. I just would like to call a truce with everyone!
This is the reason that I am writing this sad little entry, to document this sad truth about all of our lives, about our lives with each other and my life with all of them! I feel that by writing about it then I can keep track of it 's growth or decline and perhaps I will be able to measure it against the events that will come into all of our lives during the the late autumn and early winter holidays this new year and then perhaps we just might find that there will be an improvement...OR NOT! It could be that my siblings and I are doing what is normal for animals by our petty bickering and stonewalling and somehow by doing so we have come to be more like animals like humans when we get together! Perhaps we are play fighting with each other to learn how to cope in the world outside of family---I CERTAINLY HOPE NOT! If this is what we are doing then heaven help anyone that we should encounter and/or meet outside of our family/families! I have no answer(s).
Why is it sometimes that those who are the closest to us and that we are the closest to are so often the very people that we tolerate and forgive the least and also are those who tolerate us and forgive us the very least?...
Up-date:
My only sister died this same year-November 1, 2010. I am still not included in my brothers' lives and I make no effort to be included because each time I have made an effort they ignore me and I am tired of trying to get along with people who want nothing to do with me and I am tired of stressing myself out with trying and getting nothing for my efforts except more heartache and more misery.
My nephew John, my sister's youngest child has gone to live with my second brother who has done nothing to notice Debbie over the years and has even ignored her children when they were in need many years ago when he and his wife would visit her family who lived in the same town. It has seemed to me he was ashamed of her and her children. Now he gets to be the heroe again and will come to John's rescue only after Debbie is dead and I am okay with all of it as long as John is happy and gets his needs met. Heaven knows he has been kicked around, pushed around, ignored and dumped off whenever it suited his mother and his maternal grandmother's purpose, same goes sister and late brother. They are the red-headed-step-children in my family though they are neither red-headed nor stepchildren---"...talk amongst your selves!"
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