Tonight, my 14 year old sister, after I had made both challah and sugar cookies: “Oh shit, can we eat bread?”
A few moments later, she explained the story of chanukah: Moses was making bread and didn’t have enough bread and he had to use oil instead, and then the electricity went out and instead of baking more bread he used the oil for a candle, and it ended up lasting for 8 nights, so we celebrate for 8 nights.
Lately I’ve been thinking quite a bit about my sister — the middle one, the crazy one. When we were little, we were great friends, or as great as you can be with our age difference. Did it start changing when I became a real teenager? Did it start when she started to lose it, so slowly no one quite understood, at around 10 or 12? Does it matter?
For years it was ok, in a way; my friends had no siblings, or had terrible relationships with their siblings, and it seemed ok, normal. Sibling rivalry! Whatever! It was in books and movies and tv were about friends, not sisters. And now suddenly all my friends have good relationships with their siblings, travel together, socialise together, are friends. I see my mother and my aunt. I know my father talks to his siblings regularly, too. And here I am, with my sister who hangs up if I pick up the phone when she calls, who turns her face away when we are in the same room, who . . . well, it’s pointless to list the litany of things my sister does to hurt me. Or that hurt me: I am not entirely sure whether they are done deliberately to cause pain or if it’s just a nice side benefit for her.
I have another sister, and we get along well, but she’s fifteen years younger than me instead of four and a half, and that’s a real difference.
So maybe she hates me or resents me or is jealous. I don’t know; she doesn’t know, either, I don’t think. Even if she does know, it doesn’t matter, because she doesn’t intend to do anything about it. Oh, yes, there are more issues than just her being nasty to me (and everyone! I’m not special), she’s altogether insane and incapable of living in the real world, her cruelty to her family is part and parcel of the whole thing but probably not the worst for her. But those don’t impact me, now, though in time I will have to help support her.
What I’ve realised lately is that I do not mind, quite so much, the abuse. Not that I love it, because it’s unpleasant, it’s abuse. What I mind is the lack of relationship. And I think this is part of why I will never cut her off entirely: I keep hoping she will decide she wants to be part of a family. Wants me to be part of hers.
My grandmother has, for years, long before I was born, had Friday night dinners for the family. When I was young, I was made to sit on a towel in case I dropped food on their chairs. When I was young, my aunt and uncle came every single week. We still have fights about politics. Except we don’t, not anymore. Suddenly, my grandmother can’t manage it. Suddenly, she’s on and off sick (a recurrence, we think, of Meniere’s disease), on and off unable to get out of bed for a day or more at a time. She can’t hear properly. And so, lately, no family dinners. Oh, my mother and my aunt intend to do them, sometimes, but I am not sure whether they will. Even if they do, it’s just not the same.
And I know, of course it’s not the same, it hasn’t been the same in ages, but this is a real ending to something I am not ready to see end, and I can no longer ignore that my grandparents are mortal and in their late 80s.
Yesterday was a beach day (today wasn’t, luckily; I’m getting a horrible heat rash and would have had to take today off anyhow). My grandparents also came down the day before, so were on the beach yesterday. (Going to Boston seems unlikely at best. I will probably head to NH again, that’s it.)
As 85 year olds go, my grandfather is in great shape. Last summer we had a waterfight in the pool, including tipping each other off floats. This summer, after falling back into the water (on purpose — it was somewhere a bit deeper than knee-deep) he absolutely could not get up by himself (though in fairness, he never tried to go deeper or roll over onto his front and get up), and I had to pull him back standing. Probably he should not go in the water himself (though since it’s warm and balmy, there are loads of people there, and I figure tomorrow we will try again and if he goes deeper I think he’ll find it easier). This makes me sad. When I was little, he’d carry me on his shoulders and wade out to shoulder deep. (My other grandfather is in hospital, with a heart attack, and now some sort of blood infection; this makes me less sad, except the worry that we’ll have to cut the vacation short. Yes, I do rather prefer one side of my family.)
Of course, once we got out of the water he insisted on slandering me. “[Wolfa] kept refusing to help me up, and said to go deeper instead.” Then, later, he accused me of breaking, or spraining, or something his shoulder. In front of company! I told him this is why my grandmother is number 1, and he’s only number 2.
I was watching The Princess Bride with my father today, the duel scene between Westley and Inigo Montoya. (Does Mandy Patinkin ever get asked to repeat that line anymore? Is he sick of it?) I marvelled at the background with the totally non-moving clouds. Then my father — who has seen this movie before, and more than once — asks me if I notice anything odd about the scene.
Well, the clouds aren’t moving.
No, he says, they’re both fighting left-handed. Isn’t that odd? Do you know what percentage of people are left-handed?
His face when Inigo and then Westley both admitted to not really being left-handed was priceless.
My grandfather today asked me if I had good friends, ones I could ask about anything. (Maybe not relations with your husband, if you had one, he added.) Yes, I said, I do have those friends. (The fact that I *won’t* bring up anything doesn’t mean I couldn’t; it’s my insanity, not my friends’ lack of trustworthiness.) I don’t have many friends, but the ones I have are good ones. (I tend not to have casual acquaintances, though I wouldn’t mind some. I am not good at meeting people, though, or even really suggesting stuff with people I know but not well.)
I am not sure why he asked me. He sounded sad that he didn’t have many friends now. Mostly he outlived them, and he said — jokingly? I don’t know — that when they spent money before it was on boats and not golf clubs, where he might have always been meeting more people. He sounded pleased, or perhaps relieved, that I have friends like that. Friends at all? Sometimes I wonder what my family thinks of me. Sometimes I am not sure I want to know.
Today I went to my great-uncle’s unveiling, to my grandparents’ house for a lunch, and then to a three hour nap. I am still totally exhausted, and dizzy, perhaps with the exhaustion, perhaps not, but dizzy nonetheless. (And if you’ve seen the stairs to and in my place, you know dizziness is risky.)
I don’t remember my great uncle well. I remember liking him, finding him fun. (I hear that as a parent he was not. But he was not my parent.) I remember he ate very slowly, I remember that he asked about me, shortly after he moved into a home after his diagnosis with Alzheimer’s. I didn’t go, and then it was quickly too late, and I feel sorry about it still.
Keep on dancing, uncle-give-me-a-kiss-Mort.
Y’he sh’lama rabba min sh’mayya v’chayyim tovim.
me: uh, perhaps that would be inadvisable?
sister: wtf
sister: SPEAK FKING ENGLISH
me: that was english
sister: jeesh
sister: speak my level of english
sister: u weirdo
sister: ‘
sister: friken linguistisions
As I whined over at Phantom’s, my sister has been difficult, lately. This is because she’s totally nuts. Someone here once suggested Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and I have thought a lot about that, but in the end, I don’t think it’s that. But it’s also probably not that distant. Close enough, certainly, that some of the stuff I’ve read is useful.
But useful up to a point. I’ve never been particularly able at controlling my anger around her. She does, after all, know me well enough to know where every single one of my buttons is. Her big thing is always to mock me for being at my parents’ house (where she lives). For the past few months it’s — you know, I say this, and I know it’s absurd, because it sounds so fucking minor. The thing is: it isn’t. But for the past few months it’s just been saying my name in this weirdly semi-nasty (but with deniability) tone, and “Seeing you again/haven’t seen you since [whenever]/here again/something along those lines”. And as irritating as it gets (every single time), I’ve been totally able to ignore it. I don’t know how — maybe the lack of overt cruelty? (To me only. I am not going to list the ways she is nasty to other people.)
It has, however, been getting harder. Either because the steady accumulation ends up being as bad, or because I’m otherwise on edge, or because it’s really not all there is, or some combination of these and other things. And also, it’s annoying her that I haven’t gotten angry at her, so she’s stopped muttering the stuff (much of which I didn’t even hear, either as words or as incomprehensible mumbles) and started saying it louder. And her “Hi Wolfa” has gotten to almost yelling, which I find weird more than anything else. With a brief exception, I would say I have not spoken to her in two months.
It makes me sad. I see friends who have actual (positive) relationships with siblings, and I am jealous.
Also I have told her that I will not do her any favours unless she asks me herself, and politely. (I’ll ignore tone, but not word choice.) This means no asking my parents to ask me to do something (turn on/off a radio, a light). I have made it clear that I will do them, if she asks. So far, she’s just given up asking anyone when she wants me to do something. I am trying to hold back from pushing it, just to see how far she’ll go to refuse being not rude to me.
I don’t really know how much longer I can hold out. I don’t really know what choices I have. None, or none that are good.
The problem really is how much I dislike myself when I interact with my sister. I can’t seem to keep myself acting anything better than sulky toddler.
I would go into more detail about her again but, really, what’s the point? The fights are always the same, my reactions are always the same, I know it sounds like I overreact, but the truth is, she is incredibly cruel, and all the time, it just doesn’t translate. And I can’t seem to be sympathetic to any of her issues, and I can’t even manage my own enough to deal with her in a way that I don’t end up regretting for some reason.