Cookie baking went relatively well, though there are always some sore spots with family. And at least I got to do it this year. Last year since I was in rehab and my sister didn't want to spearhead it with my aunt so it was canceled. I wasn't surprised but I was disappointed, although it underscored yet again that without me being the protagonist in my family my sister will not step up to the plate and this year was no different.
I try not to be angry. I realize that she's a very different person, that what she sees as important is not what I do and that it's always been that way. She thought nothing of leaving for LA for four years despite and partly because of my family's desire to keep her nearby. To her, the fact that she was basically gone from my life for about ten years didn't mean there was any reason I wouldn't be close to her when she deigned to return. It's the same with cookie baking; if she didn't feel like doing it the one year I was unable to do so, well, then it applies for everyone by default.
I didn't delude myself. I knew it was disruptive for the entire family and only marked my absence more, even though I didn't say anything since there nothing I could do at that point. Hell, I barely got a day pass for Christmas itself. I just let my parents do the family program with me that weekend instead, which was its own special kind of hell, but it made them feel better I hope.
And yet she will take an entire day to travel to NJ and back two weeks ago to visit our last great-uncle who is dying in a nursing home. I respect that since I don't have the energy to do that outside of dire need, and while she hasn't consciously decided that he's basically done for, at least at some level when it counts she shows up. Yet if she'd waited a week we saw him together on Sunday.
So I'll give her credit for that and just try to work around her as always. I still can't bring myself to depend on her, or even really stand her presence, but she does have her positives no matter how illogical they are. I hope that she'll eventually have some sort of awareness of how she affects everyone else around her on a daily basis, but she's a reactor to crisis, not someone who thinks regularly of how she's affecting others. Better than nothing, I suppose. And I just have to put that in perspective.
I try not to be angry. I realize that she's a very different person, that what she sees as important is not what I do and that it's always been that way. She thought nothing of leaving for LA for four years despite and partly because of my family's desire to keep her nearby. To her, the fact that she was basically gone from my life for about ten years didn't mean there was any reason I wouldn't be close to her when she deigned to return. It's the same with cookie baking; if she didn't feel like doing it the one year I was unable to do so, well, then it applies for everyone by default.
I didn't delude myself. I knew it was disruptive for the entire family and only marked my absence more, even though I didn't say anything since there nothing I could do at that point. Hell, I barely got a day pass for Christmas itself. I just let my parents do the family program with me that weekend instead, which was its own special kind of hell, but it made them feel better I hope.
And yet she will take an entire day to travel to NJ and back two weeks ago to visit our last great-uncle who is dying in a nursing home. I respect that since I don't have the energy to do that outside of dire need, and while she hasn't consciously decided that he's basically done for, at least at some level when it counts she shows up. Yet if she'd waited a week we saw him together on Sunday.
So I'll give her credit for that and just try to work around her as always. I still can't bring myself to depend on her, or even really stand her presence, but she does have her positives no matter how illogical they are. I hope that she'll eventually have some sort of awareness of how she affects everyone else around her on a daily basis, but she's a reactor to crisis, not someone who thinks regularly of how she's affecting others. Better than nothing, I suppose. And I just have to put that in perspective.
posted by AnonymousX at 8:31 PM
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