(568) A knot in my rope – Part 2 of 2

Post #568
[Private journal entry written on Monday, December 27, 2010 – continued from previous post]

At the dinner, my mom asked me what I was planning to do to celebrate my birthday that’s coming up this week. I told her that I had nothing planned. She inquired, “So, it’s just another day?” “Yeah.”

It really isn’t important to me . . . so what that I’m a year older . . . it’s not like there is anyone in my life who wants to do something to celebrate my birthday just because it would be fun to celebrate it. If anyone threw a party, it would be because he or she felt obligated or felt sorry for me. So, why bother? I don’t want anyone doing anything for me out of obligation or pity.

I feel the same way about Christmas presents, too. I didn’t send out any cards this year and I didn’t give any gifts except the one I sent to my best friend, Melodie – and I sent one to her because I knew she wanted the full set of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books that we saw when we were at the Ingalls homestead site in South Dakota over Labor Day weekend – and because I found a good deal on them. I don’t always send her a gift . . . and she doesn’t always send me one . . . we do so only when we find something really special to send. I like it that way.

Photo by Martin Chen

But, I do feel a bit bad that my siblings all gave me presents for Christmas and for my birthday and I didn’t give them anything in return. Is it disrespectful that I don’t reciprocate? I just don’t like giving gifts because it is expected. I like giving gifts when something special comes up . . . for example, during a family dinner at my mom’s house a while back, my brother mentioned that his camera tripod was falling apart from old age. He was saying that he had to save up to buy another one.

Well, it turned out that my mom had my tripod – a very nice one – tucked away in her storage room. It is the tripod I used when I was into photography. But, I’m not into photography anymore so I’m not using the tripod. So, I gave it to my brother.

I guess I do reciprocate, it’s just on my own terms.

When it comes to celebrations and traditions, part of me feels rather cold and dead about it. Those rituals are not important to me. If my mom weren’t around, I’m not sure I’d even go out of my way to attend family events. I don’t know . . . maybe I’d attend, if I were invited, out of pure obligation. But I don’t think I’d go out of my way to do so. I’m not even sure I’d acknowledge birthdays and holidays – I mean, why bother?

Sometimes I wonder if my mom is starting to feel less accommodating about holidays. This year, she did what my brother usually does . . . my brother usually announces, “We are having [holiday] dinner at our house on Thursday at noon. You can come if you care to.” There is no flexibility, there is no discussion about having it at someone else’s house . . . he says that, if we don’t like it, we don’t have to come.

So, my mom did the same thing this year for Christmas – she beat my brother to it. She told me that she did it so she could invite whom she wanted to invite – my brother won’t allow us to invite our friends to his house because they only have enough matching table settings for eight people – it would be horrible if someone had to use a table setting that didn’t match. (Huh???? Really???)

Maybe the reason I don’t connect well with my brother is because he enables his girlfriend’s belief that having a fully matched table setting is more important than communing with people we hold dear.

I guess my dark feelings are coming from the pain I feel from not having a family unit to which I feel I really belong. I feel a bit orphaned. I really want a relationship with my siblings, but that isn’t happening. I feel connected with my mom, but even that relationship is somewhat superficial and limited because there is so much of what is happening now in my life that I can’t discuss with her because it would cause her great pain.

There is no way I can tell her how much damage was caused by her emotional distance and her not protecting me from my dad’s violence and her not believing me when I told her, at age four, about being molested . . . and her version of physical violence she occasionally dumped on me.

I don’t think it would help me to tell her . . . and it would only cause her pain . . . I don’t want to do that to her. I don’t see any benefit in doing that. But, that means I also can’t share with her on an emotionally intimate level, either.

I can’t have a meaningful conversation with my sisters because, if I mention anything about my healing journey or my spiritual awakenings, the conversation drops to uncomfortably dead silence. I guess they don’t want to encourage my “delusions” and heathen ponderings and they don’t want to openly disagree with me, so they say nothing and wait for the conversation to shift.

I think maybe the part of this that hurts the worst is that we have claimed to be a close family and we have always claimed that we get along. For example, 19 years ago, when my dad was dying at the hospital, the doctors and the nurses commented on the unity and solidarity we demonstrated as a family unit during that very difficult time. I’ve always been told – and have always believed – that I come from a very close-knit family.

And now, at family functions, I feel that I am an annoyance, that they just as soon I not be there. It’s not that we are fighting, it’s not that we don’t get along, we just . . . I just . . . I don’t know . . .

Every holiday is a reminder of how much I don’t fit in anymore. I guess I never have, I just am now finally tired of fighting to be seen and heard. I don’t care; I’m done fighting. If my siblings don’t want to see and hear me, so be it.

I guess that is the great myth that I’m now uncovering through my healing journey . . . I’m learning that my family isn’t that awesome and that my upbringing had a lot of darkness in it. My pain is coming from the disproving of the myth that has surrounded my perception of my family and the way I was raised – the myth is being shattered and that hurts.

So, anyway . . . Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.