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What’s worse, a cutting remark “What’s wrong with Val?” repeated to me in good humor, jogged loose something from my childhood.
After the birth of my son, my mother had told me what I felt all along – that I had been the odd kid. “I didn’t know what to do with you,” she said, “you were so different from the others.” As if I needed to be reminded.
A few years later, when an email set me off, it was time to lay low.
If absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder, 365 days out to be just about enough time to thaw the cockles.
The distance of time allowed me time to reassess.
At first, I simply recuperated from withdrawal and guilt, but within the first three months, I settled into my self-exile. By the time four months rolled around, I decided it was time to dig deeper, to excavate to see if I could unearth the source of my irritation.
What was it about any of this that was so bothersome to me?
Early, on, I got the picture. I was 11 when my eldest sister left home, 13 when the next one left, and 20 when the third moved out. They didn’t just move out of the house, they moved to different cities. I’d been pushed aside, left behind. Feelings of abandonment may have been at the root of my frustration, but that’s standard-issue baby of the family stuff.
Now, after more than a decade of infrequent contact – two were raising kids, I was focused on a corporate career and hanging out in bars on weekends – I was pushing for their attention, again.
What I saw as commiserating, they may have heard as whining. What I meant as excitement about another publication credit, they could have read as bragging. My concept of connecting could be construed as being intrusive.
I discovered that I hadn’t really been interested in day-to-day lives of my siblings as much as I been seeking their attention and approval.
They became stand-ins, too. I obligated them to support my every creative endeavour so that I didn’t have to move outside my comfort zone. This dependency held me in place. I was ready to move forward. By setting aside my intense neediness, I found that my interest in their lives became genuine.
It also let me off the hook.
I no longer feel pressure to initiate contact. I’d somehow come to regard communication with my siblings as obligation. How could they not have felt it?
As the year wore on, I felt free from the emotional obligation I’d been holding on to for a long time. Because I initiated contact with almost militant frequency and intensity, I’d made it difficult to retreat.
Perhaps, if I’d left sooner, I could have done so graciously, instead of making an abrupt departure.
A year-long break brought a new view of things
Pushing for friendship and intimacy that doesn’t exist is futile.
After I’d had a child, I somehow believed that childbirth gave me automatic entrance into my sisters’ two-person clique. Acceptance with open arms. Not so.
In the past year, I learned to let go. I no longer feel as if I’m trying to force anyone into a relationship, as if I am chasing friendship.
Whatever the reasons are for their lack of interest, I knew I’d have to accept the situation for what it is, not begrudgingly, but truly accept it without analysis, without dejection, without judgment, and move on.
The commonality of our DNA doesn’t mean we must share every minute detail of our daily lives with one another. After all, we live in three different cities, on two different continents. The average age of their children is 25; my child is 12.
No matter how much I wish things were different, these are facts: I have three sisters. We are not best of friends, we don’t have to be. We are family and I love them.
I am now content to let them know I am here for them, that I think of them often, but that I will honor their space. Between corporate and technical writing gigs, Valerie Bean writes magazines features, news, profiles, and general-interest articles. She is a published book author and an internationally published poet who resides outside Toronto, Canada. You can learn more about her at www.valeriebeanonline.com.
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Written by weihanteng - Wednesday, December 14 2011 |
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