And Now For Something Completely Different
2 Comments so far
Leave a comment
Yeah, I know. I haven’t posted in a while. Grad school, and the assistantship, and the goats with all their germ-carrying potential, are kicking my ass. We actually went home last weekend for the Buckeyes’ home opener and yours truly and Goat #2 spent the weekend popping OTC cold meds and lying around the petri dish hotel room. I’d say I’m about 25% today, which is still way better than I was all weekend. Anyway, I owe you all (all 7 of you) a huge bunch of catch-up posts. In the meantime, though, I promised to allow an anonymous poster to use this space to say some things that she cannot say on her own blog. (Keep reading; I’ve posted the rules below so you’ll understand in a minute.) If any of what she has to say speaks to you, please leave some blog comment love to support her. Sometimes we (that’s the royal blogging “we”) just need to know people are listening.
It was all Her Bad Mother’s idea; here’s the deal:
I said it before, and I’ll say it again: sometimes, you can’t vent openly – that is, yell at people to their faces, or, say, rant freely on your blog – without risking big trouble. The Basement is always available for that kind of thing, of course, but it occurred to me that sometimes we need to be invited to spill our guts, to be welcomed to vent and rant and get all messy. So I proposed the following: a Bitchin’ Bitchfest Blog Exchange, wherein we arrange some swapping of blog spaces and opening up of blog spaces so that we can all blog openly on a theme that isn’t entirely appropriate for our own blogs. Like, say, ‘Things (Or People) That Make You Go ARGH’ (not that I would know anything about this, but, you know: family members, in-laws, neighbors, et al.) Hence, the Bitchfest/Betchfest/Festival Of Rants.
I am honored to provide a place for this woman to say the things she needs to say. Here it is (after [too] much introduction):
I have one sibling, a sister who is 6 years older than me. She moved out of the house when I was 12 and then promptly got pregnant, had the shotgun wedding and settled down at 19 on a small farm 2 hours from the city we grew up in. I went to university, got a professional designation, travelled, and eventually married and now have a 3 year old daughter. Because of the age difference we never were really close. Because of the age difference I have great nieces and great nephews who are older than my daughter. Chalk and cheese.
This rant could be about my parents. About how my mom did her absolute best to play my sister and me off against each other. About how she held me up as some great example of how.to.be and pretty much ensured that my sister would be bombarded with stories of how.great.I.am and how.she.is.a.loser. This could be a rant about how my dad let alcohol get in the way of being a good dad and husband. About how booze was so much more important than any of us. (The only reason he cut down on his drinking at age 76 was because of his own health, not anything to do with all the years of ruined family holidays). About how I rarely brought friends home because either my mom would yell at them or my sister or me or my dad would rock up drunk and both would embarrass the hell out of me.
But it’s not.
This rant is about my sister. About how at the age of 52 she is still bitter against me despite us never really knowing each other. About how she claims to my mother to be “crazy” about my daughter yet has never visited despite many invitations. About how rather than being angry at my parents for their failings, has decided that they are perfect and it’s me that is the source of all trouble in her life. How I am selfish and I am obsessed with money. You see, rather than escaping by getting pregnant, I escaped by going to university. I moved away leaving her to deal with our parents.
We both chose different ways to escape and different ways to deal with our messed up childhoods yet she sees only that somehow it is all my fault.
You know, her daughters (and my nieces) have been adults for over 10 years now. My sister has had lots of free time. In the meantime she could have gone to university. She could have travelled. She still could. But rather than make any changes in her life, it’s easier to shun me and most hurtful, shun her only niece, my daughter.
I have tried talking to her but she does not answer the phone when my area code and phone number show up on her call alert. I have tried emailing her but she rarely replies. When I visit my parents (3000 miles away) who live near her, she avoids being there. My husband and I arranged a family reunion and were nearby for 10 days. She visited for the shortest amount of time that she could – just enough so that the extended family got a show of how connected she is and not enough to have even one conversation with me. She puts on a good show of being close to me to our parents and relatives but the reality is the opposite.
My greatest fear is that when our parents die, I will never hear from her again. Somehow punishing me makes up for all the bad memories. I wish that she could put all this behind her and that we could, for the first time in almost 50 years, actually get to know each other. Who knows, we might even like each other.
2 Comments so far
Leave a comment
Waltz In Exile 
As an only child, I can only offer sympathy. 😦
I will say this: Don’t you wish that age equalled maturity? I feel like this is implied when one is a child, but upon reaching a certain age (usually ranging from 15 or so, I think), it becomes more and more apparent that… nope. Some people will. not. grow. up. Le grrrrr.
Comment by Cynical Nymph 2 September 2008 @ 12:48 pmjust to let you know, there is a bitchin’ place that has been up for months.http://bitchinescape.blogspot.com/
Comment by JanScholl 2 September 2008 @ 2:03 pmI have left stuff here whenever I get in a mood. As have others. If you want to write for it, email the proprietor and set up a fake name. If you want to leave a comment you can do that anonymously. I have to be very careful there as my daughter and SIL seem to think everything is written about them So feel free to send friends and foes there.That is all its for-to bitch and bitch and bitch.