Brrrrrrrr
So, it’s November here in central Indiana, and tonight the temperature drops down to “I’m a big wuss”. It’ll be “around 30 degrees Fahrenheit”, according to local news. But it’s not just chilly here, no sir. I suspect it’s a little chilly in southeast Georgia tonight.
My mom and my brother have had a pretty rocky relationship over the last 3 years or so. She and my dad moved to Georgia before Wia was born so she could babysit for them, allowing my brother to pursue the firefighting gig and my sister-in-law to work her crazy early-morning hours. Mom babysat for them until they moved here in October 2007, and as it turns out, she’s a large part of why they moved back to Indiana. I think Mom has a hard time understanding that her two children are now her ADULT children, and we have lives and mistakes of our own to make. I think she’d like to keep sheltering us forever, but in doing so, she’s driving one of us bat-shit crazy. There was a lot of passive-aggressive behavior on her part… but I wasn’t there, so I only have the two versions of the same story that I’d get from each of them.
Don’t get me wrong - I think both Mom and RC are wrong in their behavior toward one another, and they will for certain need to find a middle ground if they’re ever going to be able to fix the damage they’ve inflicted on their relationship. I just don’t know what that middle ground will be, or how they’ll go about finding it. For me this is all especially difficult - apparently I’m a pacifist of sorts, and I can’t stand that our family isn’t one big happy family that gets together at holidays and LOVES to spend time with each other. I dream longingly of Martha Stewart Thanksgivings and Hallmark Christmases, but I’m afraid that’s never going to happen.
Things kind of came to a head this week with the advent of Bailey. Mom was there when RC gave away his first two dogs because his wife gave him an ultimatum, and while I know my sister-in-law feels incredibly guilty about that, it’s something we all think about and Mom thinks will happen again. She wrote an unnecessarily cruel email to him, voicing her opinion. He responded today, and copied me and Dad so we’d know what he wrote. He called me at work, in tears, to let me know that he’d understand if I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. He apparently also called Dad to let him know the same thing… I’m heartbroken that he felt like he even needed to say that. I don’t know how this will all pan out, but I hope him unburdening himself allows him to finally move past everything that happened in Georgia. It’s like ripping off a scab, I guess. Now if Mom will just do the same… if they’ll just communicate. One can hope, right?
For the record, I question how in the world I’m related to these people. My family is not this family. We’re happy! We’re well-adjusted! We LURVE each other! I think.
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