*I wrote this post a few weeks ago. I’d scheduled it and then decided against publishing. I bring this up because I am now totally over it; it’s old news at this point. My mom resolved it by calling my sister out on her bullshit. My sister got angry and did not contact me about it but it got resolved. Of course nothing is *actually* resolved on a deeper level, between me and my sister. But unless I want to explode the family I think for now I’ll cease and desist. Besides, I’m getting married in eight weeks. My sister will be there. But I added this note more as a reminder to myself that things happen and then time passes and suddenly it all seems trivial. Because it IS trivial. In the face of certain death for all of us: What, really, does it matter?
**This is rare for me to publish two posts in one day, but I figured it’s an experiment; the previous post was free, this one is paid.
Enjoy 😉
***
My sister is truly amazing. I am being sarcastic in case you couldn’t tell. The other day she texted about my brother-in-law’s 50th birthday dinner, which was possibly going to happen down in Thousand Oaks (two hours south of Lompoc, where my fiancée and I live) on July 20th.
Now, Britney and I’d planned to start our cross-country trip on that day, July 20th, or the following morning of July 21st. (She’s going for a week, me for two.) I’d previously asked my sister if Britney and I could come down on the 20th, do dinner, and spend the night in their separate little unit they don’t use, then head out on our trip the next morning.
My sister did not respond to this.
I’d texted her and my brother-in-law on a three-way thread. I then followed up by asking if they planned to come to my wedding reception in mid-November.
No response from my sister, but my brother-in-law said he “wouldn’t miss it.”
I think what happened is that my brother-in-law probably told my sister what I said about them on Thursday, June 1st, the day they came to see my father, aka the day before he died on June 2nd. My bro-in-law had—I think in bad taste, given the timing—asked me if I was angry at them (my sister and he). It was sort of obvious since I wasn’t talking to them much and was hiding in my room downstairs at my mom’s house.
I initially said, when he asked me that day, that I didn’t think the time was right to discuss it, but he pushed me, and my mom did, too, and I said, “Well, my mom and I felt betrayed by you and my sister because you guys were so uninvolved during this whole two year process of my dad’s cancer.” At the time my bro-in-law got angry when I said this and walked off. My sister had been with my dad in his room down the hall. Ten minutes later they both staggered out, clutching their stomachs as if shot, weeping about my father’s demise, after he’d gotten really weepy and honest with them.
Since then my bro-in-law, ironically, has been totally cool and jovial. My sister, however, has been ignoring me.
Returning to the recent text experience re my bro-in-law’s 50th birthday.
So my sister then says they’re going to do dinner at 7pm that night, July 20. And then—get this: My favorite part—she says, “But you have to pick Mom up and drive her down because of her knee surgery, and take her home after.” She follows this up with a second text which reiterates: If you don’t drive Mom down she cannot come.
Let me explain—if it isn’t patently obvious—why this is so fucked up.