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Last Updated: 11/24/2009

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Gender: Female
Status: Single
Age: 36
Sign: Gemini

City: EVERYWHERE
State: NEW YORK
Country: US
Signup Date: 3/10/2006

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Friday, November 30, 2007 

Current mood:  optimistic
Category: Life

Ho ho ho, everybody!

I'm so glad to be back to my blog at The Memoirists Collective, after a month-long hiatus for NaNoWriMo and organizing The Best Memoirists Pageant Ever (and it was!)

And I don't return empty-handed, either!  The lovely people at StuffitBag.com have donated a bunch of their funky laptop protectors to YOU, oh loyal readers of this blog! Stuffit Bags are colorful, generously padded to protect your precious writing equipment, yet super-light! (Perfect for holiday travel!)  Ours are ideally sized for a 12"-wide laptop (but personally, I think you could fit up to a 14"-wide notebook in them).  Want to get your mittens on one?  Tell me so by posting a comment to that effect on this page, or send me a message via my personal MySpace page.  But do it by midnight EST on December 14, 2007!  I'll notify the winners via MySpace message on Monday, December 17, 2007.

And now…onto the blog at hand!

* * * * * *

Frosty: A Family Christmas
By Kim Brittingham

The holiday season is here -- a time when we naturally ask of our friends and co-workers, "So, where are you going for Thanksgiving?  For Christmas?  For New Year's?  Will you be visiting family?"

And I always reply that, no, I will not be visiting family.  I don't "do" family for the holidays.

This usually prompts a why.

"Are your parents dead?"

Well, you could say that.  You see, I'm estranged from my family.  Unofficially disowned.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I'm always surprised when people really, truly want to know the details.  For a couple of years, I tried handing out the story in a nutshell, but that never seemed to be enough.

And so, weary of repeating myself, I present the full story of my familial estrangement here and now, so that next time I'm asked, I can simply direct the inquiring party to this blog.

It all started about five or six years ago (I've lost count), at Christmas.

My parents live in Philadelphia; I live in New York.  I used to visit them at Christmas.  I'd usually show up on Christmas Eve and spend the night at my parents'.  It was a terribly unhealthy thing.

Literally unhealthy, because my parents have pets.  I don't know the situation now, but they used to have two cats and a dog, in a tiny little apartment with poor ventilation.  And I'm extremely allergic to both types of pet.

Every year I'd end up dreadfully sick and miserable.

My mother used to keep a framed family photo on her sofa table, of her and my dad, my siblings and me, sitting in a row wearing blue tissue-paper crowns from a set of English Christmas crackers.  I hated that picture.  I looked like an overinflated pink balloon in a ski sweater.  My face was puffed up from spending the night in the stuffy, animal-infested apartment, my eyelids inflated like marshmallows and nearly obscuring my eyes entirely, my cheeks and nose an angry red from the endless scraping of rough generic tissues against my face as I sneezed my guts up.

So a couple of weeks before my last "family Christmas", I was talking to my therapist about how I was dreading another holiday of bronchial agony for me, and excruciating boredom for my boyfriend at the time.  Jim traveled faithfully by my side to so many family Christmases, always with a box of Kleenex at the ready.

"Well Kim, what are you going to do to take care of yourself this year?" my shrink asked.

It was an excellent question.  Yes, I did need a game plan.  One that not only took care of me, but took my mother's needs and feelings into consideration as well.

You see, Christmas has always been an important holiday to my mother.  And I think her favorite part was seeing all three of her kids opening presents under the tree on Christmas morning.  I didn't want to ruin that for her.  So I came up with a compromise.

I called her up.

"Hey Mom, listen, I've got an idea for Christmas.  Since the dog and cats bother me when I stay with you, I was thinking Jim and I could stay in a hotel on Christmas Eve instead, and come over on Christmas morning to open presents.  It would cut down on some of the time I'm exposed to the animals.  But also, we could go out to breakfast together on Christmas morning, either before or after presents.  It'll be more time together, but without the pets.  What do you think?"

"That might be nice," she said.  "But do you think any place will be open on Christmas morning?"

I'd already done my homework.  "The Ritz Diner on the Boulevard is open.  We can be waited on, and you won't have to cook breakfast for anybody.  And we can still go back to your apartment and open presents around the tree.  What do you say?  Should I call and make a reservation?"

"Sure," she agreed.  "That sounds good."

Great!  This was going to work out just fine.

There was something else about recent Christmases that had been disappointing me, though.  I was never able to visit my grandmother on the holiday.  My Aunt Linda always had my grandmother to her house on Christmas Day, and since I was always at my mother's, and since my mother wasn't speaking to my Aunt Linda, my path never crossed my grandmother's on Christmas.

Well, since I was taking my life into my own adult hands with the allergies thing, I decided to do something about my grandmother, too.

"Grandmom, I know you're going to Aunt Linda's on Christmas Day.  But what are you doing Christmas Eve?"

Since I wouldn't be going to my mother's, I was free.

"Well, nowhere.  I'll just be home here with your Uncle Russell.  Your Aunt Linda and Uncle Mike might stop by."

"Would you mind if Jim and I came to visit you?"

"I would love it!" she said in her sweet, trembly voice.  "But you know I go to bed early, kiddo.  What time did you want to come?"

My grandmother's bedtime had been shockingly early since I was a little girl.  In summer, it was still daylight when she turned in.

"I know, I know.  Don't worry, here's my idea.  We can come in the afternoon, say around 1:00.  Now listen, I don't have control over what anybody else does, but I can promise you I won't stay later than 7:00.  How does that sound?"

"Sounds good to me, kiddo!"

"And I don't want to make any extra work for you or Uncle Russell, so I'll bring food.  You won't even have to feed us."

I called my mom and updated her on the plan.

"Oh, that sounds nice!" she said. "Daddy and Jen and I will come over Grandmom's after work.  Maybe we can even get Scott and Patty to come by, too."

Jen is my sister, who still lived with my parents at the time; Scott and Patty are my brother and his girlfriend.

This was getting better and better!  If my parents were going to come to my grandmother's on Christmas Eve, then I'd get to spend time with them on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, after all.

As the days counted down to Christmas, I learned that more and more people were joining us at Grandmom's on Christmas Eve.  Still mindful of keeping my visit work-free for her and my Uncle Russell, I decided to bring more food, for the extra company.  And I'd bring paper plates too, and leave behind no dirty dishes.

The days leading up to Christmas were rough.  I was having major back problems.  I felt like the Tin Man when Dorothy first finds him rusted in place in the forest.  My back was stiff and sore, and the smallest attempt to change position was agony.  And in the midst of it all, I was making my parents' and siblings' Christmas presents -- from scratch.

I sew, and I'd gotten the idea in my head to make everyone a robe.  But not from a store-bought pattern.  Noooo.  I had to be creative and draft my own patterns.  I had to be a glutton for punishment. The men's robes were pretty straightforward, but for my mother and sister, I created a sort of kimono-inspired pullover that could be worn as a poolside cover-up.  It took a lot of draping and pinning and slow dancing with a mannequin, plus MATH (which I hate).  There was much painful stretching across a big table to smooth and cut long swaths of flannel, and bending over the sewing machine wasn't that therapeutic either.

On top of it, the night before Philadelphia, I was up 'til midnight preparing food for the gang expected at my grandmother's.

I needed a break, and badly.

I'd always wanted to stay at the Inn of The Dove.  It's one of those cheesy highway love nests with mirrors on the ceiling where people go to fuck.  It's in Pennsylvania, just outside the Philly city limits.

It didn't strike me as particularly romantic or arousing, either in theory or actuality, but I heard they had suites with huge four-person hot tubs in them.  Right there, in the motel rooms!  Right next to the king-size beds!  As a water baby, I had to experience this luxury at least once in my lifetime.  With the large-screen TV in perfect view from the tub, there was a real danger they might need to call in the law to drag my shriveled butt out.

It was expensive, but Jim agreed to spend Christmas Eve at the kinky Dove, so I could soak my aching back.  As long as we were leaving my grandmother's apartment at 7:00, I'd still have a couple of quality hours boiling in blissful weightlessness before bedtime.

As Christmas plans continued to take shape, I kept my mother apprised.

So at lunchtime on Christmas Eve, Jim and I arrived at Grandmom's.  It was truly wonderful to see her.  Because there would be guests, my uncle convinced her to decorate a tree (even though in later years she considered herself too old to "make a mess"), and he dragged out all of her old-fashioned flaking glass ornaments and recycled strands of silver tinsel, neatly repacked into their narrow little boxes, and the strings of colored lights with the big screw-in bulbs.  The tree looked exactly the same as it had when I was little.  I was so pleased.

Around 3:00, my mother called and spoke to my grandmother.

"Yer mudder says she'll be over as soon as she takes a shower," Grandmom said in her Old Philadelphia accent.

Relatives started showing up, so I nuked the food and spread it out on the kitchen table along with the disposable Santa Claus partyware.  The cornflake-encrusted apricot chicken nuggets were a hit, and my peanut butter muffins with chocolate chunks are always to die for.  But the carrot dish tasted like puke.  Oh, well.

Anyway, what was originally supposed to be a quiet visit with Grandmom turned into a full-blown Christmas Eve shindig, with caroling and gift-giving and the taking of big group photos.  No sign of my parents, though.

Eventually, 7:00 was upon us.  Looking around, I knew some people had no intention of leaving anytime soon, but I intended to keep my word.  Besides, my back had that appointment with a $200-a-night hot tub.  And boy, was I ready for that.

But I stayed a little beyond 7:00, because my parents still hadn't shown.  I at least wanted to say hello.  What was keeping them?  My mother called hours ago.

Finally, my brother appeared with his girlfriend, followed soon after by my parents and sister.  We chatted a bit, posed for Kodak moments, and then I slipped away to the kitchen to pack away leftovers.  On my way out of the room I asked my brother:

"Are you and Patty coming to breakfast tomorrow?"

He looked at me strangely, as though this was the first time he was hearing about it.  Then he shrugged and nodded.

Great!  We were going to have such a relaxing and festive Christmas morning.

After the food was cleaned up I went to my grandmother's bedroom and dug into the mound of coats on the bed, looking for my own.  As I pulled it on, my lower back shrieked.

My mother and sister appeared in the doorway.   They looked at me funny.

"Kim?  You going to stop over the house?" my mother asked.

Huh?

"What do you mean?" I said. "Tonight?"

She nodded.

"Uh…no.  No, Mom. I…I told you, we got that room with the hot tub.  At the Inn of the Dove."

Why would she even ASK me that?  Stop over?  To her place?  Tonight?  Wait -- the whole point was for me to limit my time at her apartment, because it made. Me. Sick!  And she knew I was paying for this damn hot tub.  Why would she expect me to suddenly throw all my plans down the john now? It just didn't make any sense.

I could tell something was up.  My mother was being quiet and sulky.  And my sister, great protector of Mom and Dad, champion child and keeper of the sacred status quo, stood close at her side.

Jim and I departed closer to 8:00 than 7:00.  But I still enjoyed about 90 minutes of delicious hot tubbing, and with a glass of wine in-hand and Rudolph on the telly.  Mmmmm, ecstacy.

Early the next morning, Jim and I exchanged our gifts on the motel room floor, beneath a tiny little potted pine we'd driven all the way from a corner florist in Manhattan and strung it with little white lights.  (I got a complete set of Spinal Tap action figures that morning -- SCORE!)

Then we dressed and went to my parents', ready for our Ritz Diner breakfast, followed by gift-opening under my mother's tree.

She opened her apartment door, still wearing her nightgown.

In a dry, flat, seemingly rehearsed and passive-aggressive voice, she spoke:

"Hi, Kim.  How are you."

Notice I typed no question mark after "How are you".  That's accurate.  How are you.  THUD.

O.K.  Somebody had a bug up their ass.  What was her friggin' problem already, on Christmas morning?

Jim and I shot each other a look and took seats in the room.  As we passed the kitchen, I spied dirty dishes in the sink, a skillet encrusted with scrambled egg.

Clearly, they'd already had breakfast.

My sister rushed over and shooed the dog away from me.

"Out of the way, Patches!  Go in the kitchen, go!  Here, Kim," she said, "sit over here by the window.  You'll get some fresh air."

My parents ambled over -- Dad wasn't dressed for breakfast, either.  They sat on twin ottomans directly in front of me and promptly lit up cigarettes and started puffing away in my face.

They made an attempt at small talk, asking about the motel.  I answered them pleasantly, matter-of-factly.  Because in my world, nothing was wrong.

Except for this icy reception, of course.  It was agonizing.  I couldn't wait for this morning to be over.  Present-opening time couldn't come soon enough.

As they unwrapped their home-made robes, my mother temporarily shed her armor and gushed over them.  I thought everything, whatever "everything" was, was O.K.

But darkness -- and the attitude -- soon re-settled over the room.

It was clear to me we weren't going out to breakfast.  They'd already had breakfast.  They'd failed to get dressed. They'd chosen to shun the plan.  And they'd chosen not to speak about it.  Chosen not to explain why they were pretending we didn't have other arrangements.  Chosen not to explain what the hell was eating them.

Jim and I collected our gifts and left.  As we said good-bye to my brother and Patty, they looked a little confused.  Their faces implored, "But what about breakfast?"  But it wasn't for me to explain.  I'd let my mother do that.

I realized later that my mother probably never told my brother, or anybody else, about my proposed Christmas agenda.  Not breakfast, not my promise to leave Grandmom's at 7:00, not the hot tub, none of it.  And I don't know why.  She decided to let people think I was some kind of bad guy.

I e-mailed my mother after Christmas and asked for my brother's address so I could send him a thank you card for his gift.  Her response was cold.  It was just an address -- no greeting, nothing more.

I've heard nothing from my mother since.  Nor from my dad, brother, or sister.

That's right -- nothing.  In over five years.

I have an uncle who loves to instigate trouble. Uncle Bob. He gossips like an old woman.  And a couple of years ago, he called to tell me he'd been at my parents' home and "they were sittin' around the kitchen table talking about how what you did that one Christmas was unforgiveable."

And what had I done, exactly?

I'd drawn up a plan.  A reasonable plan that put a cap on my allergy-related misery while still letting my mother have all her children in one place for Christmas.  A plan that allowed for 90 meager minutes of relief for my aching back while still allowing for family togetherness on Christmas Eve.

Unforgiveable.  How dare I think of myself, for even a minute!

I'm willing to cut my dad and siblings a little slack, because at this very moment, they're probably acting from an uninformed place.  From the perspective of someone who didn't know my plans that Christmas, it may have looked like I threw a party at my grandmother's house and then skipped out as soon as my nuclear family arrived.  Which, to a paranoid person or someone big into The Blame Game or playing The Victim, could be interpreted as me shunning them.  It could've looked like I was turning my nose up at their Christmas Eve invitation.  It probably sounded weird when I asked my brother, "Are you coming to breakfast tomorrow?" when he hadn't been clued in to the plan, and then even weirder when Jim and I left the next morning without any further mention of breakfast.

And from what's trickled down the grapevine over the years, it sounds like my actions have been venomously interpreted, and I have been enthusiastically demonized.

My mother made a choice.  She chose to hear out my plan, agree with it, coo through the phone that it all sounded wonderful, then make believe our conversations never took place.

I guess my agenda didn't fit in with her idea of the perfect Norman Rockwell Christmas.

If she'd stomped her feet and had a red-faced tantrum like a toddler not getting its way, she would have looked just as foolish as she does now -- but not nearly as heartless.

What I did that Christmas was unforgiveable, they say.

I guess my mother needed a reason to hate her daughter.  A reason to alienate her daughter.  To tidy things up.  To get the trouble-making, truth-telling daughter out of the picture.

So she made up a reason.  She cleaned things up reeeeal nice.

Now she's got one daughter left.  A daughter who boasts on her MySpace page that her mom and dad are her heroes -- the best parents in the world!!!

And I suppose that's just how my mother always wanted it.

Uncle Bob the Gossip actually made sense when he said of the whole situation, "Your mother has turned her back on her maternal instinct.  And that's plain sick."

But like I hinted earlier, this is not such a bad thing.  You see, my mother gave me a wonderful gift that Christmas when she shut me out of her life, and enrolled the rest of the family in it.  She spared me of a highly contagious family disease.  The longer I'm away from them, the healthier and stronger I feel.

I know the illness rages on, because I hear it when members of my extended family call.

Just last weekend my Uncle Russell rang and was talking about his sister, my Aunt Linda.  He blamed her for the fact that few people from my grandmother's church came to her funeral.

"Your Aunt Linda's been down at that church bad-mouthing our family to all those people!" he insisted.  "She's runnin' us all down!"

He had no hard evidence, mind you.  But to him, it sounded good.  It sounded likely, and that was true enough.

"Well, you don't know that for sure," I said. "You don't know what she's been saying to people, at Grandmom's church or anywhere else."

"Well, that's true," he admitted, with the briefest glimmer of sanity.  "But as far as I'm concerned, she ruined your grandmother's legacy at that church!"

I wondered if he actually realized what he'd just said.  As far as he was concerned, fiction was truth, because that's the way he wanted it.

And that's just crazy talk.

Maybe my Aunt Linda does bad-mouth her family at my grandmother's church.  But my uncle wasn't there to hear it.  He merely imagined the whole thing.  He guessed at it.

He obviously needed a new reason to hate his sister.  A reason to cast her out.  He needed somewhere to put his grief, so he heaped it in a pile of blame, and heaped it on her.  And he injected it all with the melodrama that's so typical of my family (and that they ironically always attributed to me, "Sarah Bernhardt"): "She RUINED your grandmother's LEGACY!!!"

My grandmother wasn't Mother Theresa, O.K?  She was just a sweet little old lady who loved her church.

But my Aunt Linda ruined my grandmother's legacy!  And what I did that Christmas was unforgiveable!

What my family lacks in personal strength, they make up for in bitterness and anger.

What they lack in fact, they make up for by making things up.

And there's not enough humility in all of them put together for any one of them to ever, ever say,

"You know what?  I was wrong.  I shouldn't have done or said that.  I don't know what I was thinking.  I'd like to learn how to do better."

Never.

Instead, there will be a lifetime of questions from strangers, "Do you see your mother at Christmas?  I never hear you mention your mother."

No, I don't see my mother at Christmas.  That was a choice she made several Christmases ago.

Is it sad to know you've been rejected by your mother?  And for no good reason?

Of course it is. It's downright heartbreaking.

But being finally rejected is a one-time deal.  Somehow, it's more heartbreaking to be an up-close, ongoing witness to complete abandonment of reason and reality in the people you grew up thinking had all the answers.  That'll kill you again and again -- if you let it.

Links to recent blogs:

October 20, 2007

September 30, 2007

Day Job Believer – September 12, 2007

Clueless in Philadelphia – September 2, 2007
It's Christmas in August! – August 7, 2007
Whatcha thinkin', Houdini? – July 24, 2007

4:15 PM
 
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****Hope****

 
Try again with your mom. Life is short. She will be gone soon. I wish I had mine back.
 
Posted by ****Hope**** on Friday, November 30, 2007 - 5:29 PM
[Reply to this] 
Almacita isn't here anymore.

 
I have a really dysfunctional family full of alcoholics and bigots who have never, ever been there for me. My father was an alcoholic who died when I was six. I spent a lifetime being pissed at him and afraid of being like him. I spent an even longer time being pissed at my mother--though I loved her to death. She was my best friend, but we had huge problems.

My mother got sick in October of 2004. She was dead exactly 2 months later. It highjacked my life. My family was never there for me during that time. My aunt actually laughed when I told her my mother died.

It doesn't matter.

I've spent a million minutes thinking over who mad I was about all the petty BS. And, you know, the funny thing is that--in the end--it doesn't matter anymore. When you see your mother completely immobilized by a broken heart, you tend not to hold grudges anymore. You tend to see her for who she is. You tend to see yourself a little differently, too.

You're mother is a human being. She didn't act in a way that was good for anyone, but she did it because of something that was wrong inside her. Human frailty can be a bitter pill to swallow. She probably has built up a whole set of justifications for it.

People do a lot of stupid things in their lifes because they are afraid or just unable to let go of pettiness. It sounds stupid, but be the bigger person. Don't let her get away with it. Love her despite what she's done. I suspect you do, and always will, anyway. It's hard to put your pride away and not hold onto what she did to you. In the long run, though, you will regret that you didn't at least try to make it better. Tell her--tell them--everything you just wrote here. Lay it all out there, and show her who her daughter is. Don't let another day go by where there are lies and secrets. The truth does matter. If nothing else, you'll teach her that she can't get away with the shit she pulls. But do all of this with love. Because you do, ultimately, love her or you wouldn't bother telling this story.
 
Posted by Almacita isn't here anymore. on Friday, November 30, 2007 - 7:01 PM
[Reply to this] 
Miss Lisa Mae

 
I agree with Almacita. There are tons of families out there who are dysfunctional. I come from one of the most dysfunctional families I know of... A social worker once commented we were the most tragic he had ever seen... Yet, despite the things my parents and family have done I have chosen to be 'the bigger person' as Almacita writes.

My mother commited all sorts of 'unforgivable acts' from neglecting us as children and abandoning us as teenagers and letting our father sexually abuse us. And that's the extremely short version. My father... Well we won't get into that... but I have been estranged off and on from my family my whole life. With the longest period being about three years... Hell, I fled to California from New Mexico to escape their clutches! More recently in March, I was outted for being the 'devil' as my family is extremely religious (go figure, with a mother who is a twice convicted felon, and a father who dabbles in all sorts of ungodly acts, it's quite natural they would be bible-thumpers!) and I am what I like to call, spiritual. That I brought the movie The Secret just about got me kicked out of my sister's house. She said it was the work of the devil!

They literally told me that God said it was okay not to 'cavort' with those who do not follow his path, even if they are blood related. My sister once prayed over my nephew, convinced I had somehow put a hex over him with the amazing super-natural powers I wasn't aware I had until she thoughtfully bestowed them upon me. (I had been merely whispering lovingly into his ear and remarking at how lovely he looked.)

I spent several months stewing over the matter as I ended up in the hospital from the stress they had put on me... I didn't even attend my brothers own wedding a few months ago because I couldn't bear being with my family during what is supposed to be a joyous occasion. I didn't want my memory of my brothers wedding to be sour... But I spent several hours talking with him and explaining my decision and eventually he understood. But you know, as the days turned into weeks, and eventually months, I realized that they are my family. And life is too short. I lost some important people in my life this year... I had never experienced that before. I now have a loving relationship with every member of my family. Mainly, because I have had to change the way I relate with them. They will never change... and I accept that. Though not always graciously... But I do love them and I have chosen to remain in contact, even if a matter of states seperate us, I make the attempt to telephone... The only thing that ever got in the way of my relationship with each member of my family is pride and ego... even the childhood pain I once experienced does not compare...

But thank you so much for sharing. I really enjoyed reading your story. I wish you much success and happiness (as well as an allergy-free) Christmas.
 
Posted by Miss Lisa Mae on Sunday, December 02, 2007 - 3:57 AM
[Reply to this] 
Neil...AKA...Neil "Rocks The Gear"

 
OK, kick your shoes off and put your head down on the leather couch and I'll impart my worldly if not clumsy wisdom of family life to you. I have three brothers and three sisters and I’m smack in the middle. My family is made up of the most passionate people you have ever met in your life. There’s no Italian blood but man I gotta tell ya, when somebody steps on someone’s toes in this family its VENDETTA! My oldest brother hasn’t been around since my 20 year old sons christening and I’m really not sure why. He asked my dad for some money, my dad said "no", VENDETTA! My Mom tried to help my oldest sister out when she was at an all time low and my sister was offended that my Mom thought she needed help, VENDETTA! I have another older sister who got into one of those things with my Mom a while back and refused to return my Moms calls after she found out she only had a short time left. VENDETTA! I have another sister who feels slighted by a sister in-law, VENDETTA! I have a different sister in-law who feels slighted by a sister, VENDETTA! I even have sisters who feel slighted by sisters, VENDETTA! A sister who feels slighted by two of my brothers, VENDETTA! A sister who feels slighted by two ex-husbands, VENDETTA! A sister who was slighted by one life long boyfriend, VENDETTA! Seeing a pattern here? My Dad, I and two of my brothers have no problems, never did. We’re all friends; we all like each others wives and our wives like each other. The way it should be. If we think a problem is starting, we head it off at the pass with something as profound as “Hey, what’s up your ass?” then we hash it out over a glass of bourbon and a cigar at the track. My advice to you is to send your mom a card for her Birthday, Christmas and Mothers day every year until she is no more, whether she sends you one or not. Sign it "Love Kim" with your phone number under that. It serves two purposes, 1. It makes you the bigger person and 2. It will give you the last word and a possible third "bonus" purpose would be to open a door to some dialog that may ultimately lead to some sort of reconciliation and maybe even one more allergy onslaught with Patches at Christmas. As always your blogs are my favorite and incite me to comment….Neil…AKA…Neil
 
Posted by Neil...AKA...Neil "Rocks The Gear" on Friday, November 30, 2007 - 7:48 PM
[Reply to this] 
Teresa

 
Oh wow, did you ever describe my husband's family. How I wish I could write them off! You know, I've heard from New Age type sources, that we actually choose our parents, that there's a reason we needed to be born where and to whom we were born. We even choose our race, they say, etc. If that's true, then you were probably meant to teach your family something and unfortunately, they weren't open to learning. It's like Ayn Rand once wrote: "What people are looking for are not the solutions to problems, but the reassurance that no solutions are possible". You did your best, found and opened every possible door that Christmas. Your conscience can be clean. And then here's another thought and I can't remember who to give credit to for it but it goes like this: "Great minds talk about ideas; mediocre minds talk about things; small minds talk about other people". And there you go. You raise consciousness, and that's a tough job sometimes, tough and lonely. But you have cheerleaders now here in "Blog Land", just a wee bit down from the North Pole. Merry Christmas, Kim, and thank you for sharing your great big mind and heart with us.
 
Posted by Teresa on Friday, November 30, 2007 - 11:04 PM
[Reply to this] 
sue

 
Hi Kim

I went out and watered some plants and made a cup of coffee before sitting down to write this comment. (I watered more plants midway too - drown plants to numb dealing with difficult issues, great idea!)

Families are minefields. But sometimes a death can soften the edges somewhat. My mom passed a few years ago. Prior to that there were always 'issues' between us all. The nagging ones that make things awkward and sometimes very hurtful.

Mom and I did not get on. I loved her hugely, but we warred ferociously. As the grandchildren arrived, courtesy of my sisters, it got worse as I became a non-entity. I don't have children and children definitely trump my cats. She didn't respond to e-mails, post or phone calls. I stopped trying. Retrospectively, and yes, retrospectively is the big word here... throughout.... I realised that my sisters had contact with her mainly by virtue of their children. Her focus shifted to them.

The first time she ever told me she loved me was on her deathbed. We could always talk about anything. But she could never say that line. And my internal response was, hell, you could have said it once during your lifetime, not now. It angered me tremendously.

When she passed the amazing happened and my dad became a lot softer and much more emotional and accessible. And my sisters and I talked. And one of the things we decided was that we wouldn't ever assume what anyone was thinking. Examples : if I'm not talking with either of my sisters (bizarrely) I will TELL them so - if I am angry with them I will TELL them so. It's worked well so far and we have forged a solid bond as sisters for the first time when in our 40s.

My sisters are chalk and cheese. One, I can communicate with completely and entirely merely by changing my facial expression. The other, and I love her dearly, comes from Mars. She speaks in Martian. She lives Martian - she does things that only a Martian could do (in my eyes, probably not in the rest of the world's). I love her ferociously and try to protect her from any earthly harm.

My dad? Well we war. On a weekly basis usually. Well, at least 3 weeks out of 4. He lives in another province and I phone him on Monday evenings. Usually with a feeling of oh hell... here goes the weekly conflict... let's do it and get it over with.

And then, sometimes we have a conversation of caring and note. Sometimes we even laugh. The problem is that he's also from another planet, probably Uranus, and I don't speak the language. We misunderstand each other. And when we're not actively doing that, we disagree, on 99.9% of things. We both feel the other doesn't listen. Perhaps neither of us does! But, my sister recenty informed me (he was away visiting her - we all live in different provinces) that at about 6.45 p.m. he starts getting antsy and 'hanging around the phone'. And, if by 7.05 p.m. the phone hasn't rung he gets distinctly antsy and a bit stressed. Plus won't let anyone in the household use the phone.

So, there he sits every week. Waiting for me to phone him. So that we can disagree, misunderstand and argue? I now (after a simple conversation with my sister) have reason to hope he just looks forward to speaking with me. It doesn't matter that we disagree, misunderstand and argue. And... I've progressed - so far this year I at least haven't put the phone down on him! I HAVE told him that he's insensitive and doesn't listen, but I haven't put the receiver down.

Dad recently carefully explained in painful detail that one day when he 'falls off the perch' he will be unable to split an investment between us three daughters on a 33.3% basis. Hence he will be giving our Martian sister 34%. None of us care about inheritance. But both I and my other sister went into abject 'rage/outrage mode' and declared that HAAAA she'd ALWAYS been the favourite and he was now blatantly confirming it! And we then phoned each other and laughed until we peed in our pants about the .66% saga. And had a right laughing go at my beloved Martian sister about her being the favourite, informing that it was likely that we'd sue her and see her in court!!

We all live in different provinces and I have no other family in my province. To date since mom's death I haven't had the money or furrkid care in place to allow me to join them for Xmas. And, I have too much pride to allow them to let them know that or give them the option of paying for my plane ticket. So it's not an option for me. And, despite the inevitable wars and misunderstandings that may take place, I miss that option, very much.

It's all OK. It works through. It gets there. But in it's own time. The family monster has a life of it's own. If you'd asked me when my mom was alive whether our current status would be possible, my answer would have been an emphatic no. But now, it is good. We all know we love each other even when we're ignoring, fighting with, being inconsiderate towards, baffling or annoying each other.

xoxoxo
 
Posted by sue on Sunday, December 02, 2007 - 7:57 AM
[Reply to this] 
Kat O' Nine Tales
Kat Hudson

 
I've missed the past week or so of MySpace during my move, but I'm glad I found time today to read your blog.

My family always had its own brand of nut jobs, but my parents are gone and since they spent the last 20 years of their time on earth as Jehovah's Witlessess, it sort of cut off any holiday issues with them. No holidays to celebrate? No problem!

My ex-husband's family, however, another issue! I'm glad to be done with the lot of them. My in-laws were smokers and I am asthmatic (but gratefully not allergic to my cats or to my friend's dogs). I used to beg them to NOT smoke while I was in their presence for the few hours we were forced to endure their company and they acted like I'd asked them to shave their heads and eat a macrobiotic diet.

One holiday, my asthma was really bad. We were invited to my husband's aunt's home for a Christmas party and I knew we'd be the only non-smokers there. I could have sworn I packed my inhaler.

We went to the party and for two hours, I scrambled to get out of the way any time a cigarette was lit. I felt myself get a little tight-chested a few times so I went out for some air (note to world: freezing air is not any better for asthmatic lungs than a roomful of cigarette smoke!). When I returned for a songfest (I'm a singer and they always beg me to sing), everyone in the room seemed to light up simultaneously as I started belting out the Beatles catalog while a cousin strummed his guitar.

Before I could finish singing, "Blackbird," I found myself unable to breathe. I dumped out the contents of my purse in a mad search for my rescue inhaler. Then I told my husband to look in the car's glove box for my back up inhaler. It wasn't there. Within 10 minutes, we were on our way to the hospital where I spent the night after almost dying.

Nobody sent flowers. Nobody called to see how I was doing. My ex's mother told him that I had "ruined" a great party and that I "was probably faking it." I was on Prednisone for two months after that and gained 30 pounds. Yep, I'm a big FAT faker.

Karma kicks you in the ass because my ex-husband's family have all been dropping like flies from various forms of cancer. His mother was recently diagnosed with bladder cancer. I don't wish ill on anyone, but they didn't give a damn about my well-being, so I'm not exactly weeping over their endings.

I think you might want to try reaching out to your mother. Not because you're the "bigger person" but because having this sort of thing hanging over you for so many years takes its toll on your health. The stress is not good for your body.

My parents and I had strained relations over the years because of religious differences. I am glad that I worked out most of our issues before they died. I am also able to see that a lot of the things they worried about and I worried about weren't worth the big deal we made of them.

I was always sort of the "black sheep" of the family because I left home, left their religion and did my own thing. Eventually they learned to respect me, but I think it killed them at first because I seemed like I didn't need them. I think a lot of people need to be needed and this is at the core of their personality defects.

Do whatever works best for you, though, Kim. Don't feel like you have to have the "Rockwell" family life story. Nobody does.
 
Posted by Kat O' Nine Tales on Wednesday, December 05, 2007 - 11:54 PM
[Reply to this] 
Tara

 
Hi Kim,I see my brother has responded to you as well.I can so relate to you,He has his theroy,as do I.There comes a time when you must walk away,as I did.You can pick your friends,but you can't pick your family.I won't get into to it for public reading,However I did not crack up, I woke up!!!! It is better for my mental health to be with the people who truly enjoy my company.And yes I have many friends that I have wonderful holidays with each year.I do see select family members,because we do enjoy each other and that is the way it will stay.Are you sure we're not related????LOL...LOL....So that being said,Thank's for the read,and I wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS....Tara...xo
 
Posted by Tara on Monday, December 17, 2007 - 3:20 PM
[Reply to this] 
AuthorChrys

 
Thanks so much for sharing, Kim. I have renewed and reinvigorated respect for how scary it can be to put family troubles out there like that.

I am going through something sort of similar with my won family. We have never gotten along. Well they seem to get along fine without me, which makes it even harder, makes me feel like the bad seed. I can't tell you how many times I would prepare for a trip home thinking, "I am going to make things better this time," and I'd come up with all these ways I could try to connect with various family members. I thought of things we had in common, or used to, activities we could do together. I tried pretending that I believed the things they believed, just for the sake of holiday togetherness. I wanted that Rockwell family thing so bad. There was so much I was willing to let slide by, or to try to work around.

It never mattered. It was like they were never interested. No one can do it all on their own, there has to be a willingness on both sides, and if there isn't, you can do all the work and whatever you want, and it just doesn't matter. I'm not sure, in your shoes, if contacting your mother again would be worthwhile or not. Sometimes family just sucks, and it's better to make your own family of friends. I know a lot of people who've done just that. Sometimes family is toxic and dysfunctional, and hell-bent on keeping things that way, and staying away does wonders for mental health. I think I'm personally having one of the best Christmas seasons so far, and I've spent a lot of it in my own apartment by myself, making my own traditions. It's a little lonely, but in some ways it really is a lot happier than holidays past. And then there are times where reaching out again is the best thing to do. Only you can know. I get the feeling from other things you've posted or alluded to, that this Christmas tale you posted was the culmination of a long history of other things.

My therapist said to me (actually in an unrelated to family conversation), that if someone bases their relationship with you on being the controling one, or on being superior, having power over you in some way, or something like that, and you do something to break out of that sacred role, the relationship may not be able to withstand that. I think that may have been the case here, that you did soemthing to sort of direct your own life, to take care of yourself when you needed to, and that might be sooooo against the unspoken family rules that they just can't deal with it, and would rather shut you out than allow this thing, this self-care. If you think about it, it's really sad for them, to be t hat small in thinking. And it's definitely THEIR loss.

This is something I read years ago that stuck with me, at the time I actually related it more to a romantic relationship than family, but it applies: "If you let her, the child within will often choose to continue a destructive relationship solely in the hope that one day things might get better. In order not to re-victimize yourself, it is wiser to appraise your family with the distance and honesty only your adult self can provide." It was that first sentence that got me, b/c I know I do that, a lot, and sometimes I just think it's worth getting out of the cycle.

Kudos to you for being able to share this!
 
Posted by AuthorChrys on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 1:50 AM
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