It started last night, but then I got lost drawing with colored pencils between texts and phone conversations. I wanted one more night with the Christmas lights and I am half tempted to leave the strand up that frames the window. The outdoor decorations will have to stay until a thaw as the candy canes wired to the porch are seriously encased in ice.
I almost hate to take it all down, but the skinny tree has been stripped of ornamentations and shoved back in its box. Just a few more pieces and it will be broke down and put all put away. Another holiday season committed to memory.
It was a good year, peaceful and pleasant, with many smiles. It was fun watching grandchildren play with new toys. Miss Z throwing her head back and neighing – who knew a stick horse required such lively animation? And Zavie-baby, just one year old, knew exactly how to pass a football in that “hut” thing shoving it back between his legs. Okay, so the babe knows more about football than grandma? There were also hugs and laughs and tender moments, visits with friends and family, trading fudge & sweets, shared meals and conversations.
I almost hate to break it all down and pack it away. It is like admitting that it is time to settle in for the long cold winter, the endless days awaiting the arrival of Spring. Groundhog’s Day comes next, along with the arrival of a new grandson, then Valentine’s. Drats! If the window lights were clear/white instead of multi-colored, I could leave them up and drop red & white hearts or something, add festivity to February.
On another note, I’ve been somewhat amused because I think that I am “supposed” to have hurt feelings about this Christmas. Like I am “supposed” to be upset and hurt and wonder why two of my sisters didn’t even bother to send me a Christmas card this year. They did post “Happy New Years to family and friends” on Facebook. (If they posted a simular Christmas greeting, I did not see it.)
Sister #4 is just busy… burns the candle at both ends and had her hands full with her own family. And a few years back, she told me to quit buying for her family. Yeah… they didn’t like it. Or rather, her grandkids must have loved that year’s theme of “Make a Joyful Noise” a little too much and drove all the adults insane with the box of giftbags full of candies and toot flutes, kazoos, and whistles that I mailed down that year.
As for sister #5, I think she has an issue with me or something because I commented “Happy New Years!” on her post – twice – only for my comment to later disappear so she must have deleted it twice, lol. Oh geez. Should I go for a third? Nah… don’t matter.
I don’t know what her problem is, so bump her games. I’m not playing.
That’s the thing… IF she knew me, she would know that I don’t play games. I do not play “guess what’s wrong” with people. This is like “act two” of the same play, but the thing is… “act one” went on too long.
She USED to be able to hurt me, but I have already moarned the loss of my sister. She shunned me for two long years and I still don’t know why. All I know is that one day, I had a kind and loving sister who suddenly wanted absolutely nothing to do with me. She would not take my calls, ignored emails, no response, no reply to anything. It was like she threw up an inpenatrable wall of silence and it baffled the hell out of me. She was dead to me, and I moarned the loss.
The family did not help as they kept us separated. I heard round about that me & her were fighting so much that we could not be invited to the same family functions, like wth? It takes two to tangle and I was NOT fighting with her or anyone so that just made me more baffled.
It finally ended on my 50th birthday, but I still don’t know WHY she shunned me. Oh, she gave me a vague non-explaination, something about a personal problem prepared like a canned statement so I wouldn’t pry into her personal matters. Maybe she did have a personal problem, but why take it out on me?
I should thank her for shunning me because, in my effort to understand it, I did something that I only dreamed of doing before but never imagined that I could actually do it. Yes, in the months of confusion, I started writing and cranked out 68,000+ words documenting every messed up sister game played on each other since we were little kids. It was a long angry rant… started as a simple journal entry and kept going until I poured it all out. Then I shoved the stack of paper in a box and stuck it under my desk.
Writing helped me heal from the loss of my sister. If she had never shunned me, I would not have wrote it. And now, it is the basis of my first novel. Now that the hurt has healed and the anger is gone, I can re-write it, spin it off into fiction. Right now, I am on chapter 9 and with any luck, it will be done this year.
Still, the relationship with this sister has remained tentative and I suppose I could have done more to rebuild the bridge between us. But, part of me says that is her job – she burnt the bridge, so it is her job to rebuild it. There is also a part of me that says protect myself… if she could do it once, she could do it again. The fact that she had it in her to shun me for two long years, to turn her back to me without a reason – at least none that I know of – still kind of blows my mind.
So, this not even a card this year makes me think that she’s got another burr up her bum. Is this Act Two, shun me again?
I don’t know… we never fully recovered from Act One. At best, we became like distant relatives, the kind you rarely see, odd cousins that you may run into on the street or when attending funerals and weddings. The type you greet each other with hugs and a friendly hello, then talk about everything but really nothing at all.
We don’t know each other anymore and perhaps we never did because IF she knew me, she would have brought her bee with me to me. We can’t resolve anything without communication and odds are, the original bee in the first place was something stupid. Maybe it was something someone else said round robin and it got blamed on me? I don’t know.
It is sad… there are times when I really miss my sister and I wish things could be different but, things are the way they are. I don’t know what is going on with her these days anymore than I did when she was shunning me. If it is, as she said before, a “personal” issue, then I hope she can resolve it.
Bottom line, it is not my problem. All I can do is silently wish her well, smile and wave from my side of the river. Maybe she will make the effort to rebuild our relationship someday? That’s the problem with burning your bridges, the stench can linger for years.
And so, I shall but these thoughts in the old popcorn tin with the glass bulbs and other fragile things.
~ N.
Note: this post was sent by email via cell phone. Spellcheck is not an option so my apologies for any words that make you groan.
Barnbees 