aaarrrrrgggggghhhhhh

Weird, thinking of all the years – the decades & decades – spent feeling frustrated & confused & UN when it came to having a sense of my surviving family.  Weird, because no matter how I felt about them, can now understand in my bones that it was piddly compared to the arrrrgggggghhhhh! they felt around me. 

Truth is, I had it so much easier than they did.  I felt a sense of connection with them, but - to this day - they seem to only feel an occasional connection to me.  Imagine having to put up with someone for years & years & years without feeling much if any sense of common bond.  That is hard, that is miserable hard.

Shaking my head, thinking about all the times I sent them around the bend with frustration.  Mim expressed it best.  After Kerry & Mike had gone home following his 40^th Charter Day reunion & Mom's Charter Day weekend memorial service, she told there was something she wanted to tell me, but was leery, fearful I’d take it the wrong way.  I assured her I’d take it well, so she shared with me that Mike & Kerry appreciated all that I had done for Mom.  What a dork I was, responding, “While it’s nice to hear from you, it would have meant a lot to hear it from them.”  In an instant, Mim was distressed - “It's enough they said it to anyone, they shouldn't have to say it to you.” Click.

I was always putting things awry with my sibs.  Even when I thought I was being sort of neutral, I had a talent for driving them over the edge.

Take the time first Mim, then Peter backed out of a family appointment with Mom’s psychologist.  Mim had a work commitment, then Peter called to say he wouldn't be there either.  I was left wondering if he was pulling out due to a commitment or wanted to wait until Mim could be there, too.  Seemed like a logical line of wondering.  Not to Peter.  Mom had left a voice message, asking just, and he read her the Riot Act when he called back - “Mim & me and the whole f---- world are sick of Elsa controlling our lives.  You tell her what I just said, all of it.  It’s enough to know I’m not coming; she doesn’t need to know why.” 

Mom didn’t have to tell me - I was in the same room & could hear every word.  Geez, a friend  sitting downstairs in the living room could hear his voice!   No two ways about it, I could drive that man around the bend. 

For years, have said my sibs experience me as fingernails on a chalkboard.  Even my sister-in-law experienced me as over-the-top rude, telling Mom she wanted to leave a room as soon as I entered it.   

And there I was, all those years, haplessly clueless that my sibs experience me as unimaginably toxic.  Yeah, they often left me in a dither trying to communicate, but it felt like nothing in the world sent them right up a wall than persistently aaarrrrrrgggghhhhhhh moi.  Yikes!