Disconnect

It seems like my blogs are mostly about family and friendship dynamics and all the dysfunction that goes along with them.  This one will be no different.  I hope I don't sound too whiny as I feel is the tone with my other blogs.  So here it goes.

Last night, I was with a group of siblings.  They were a group of two brothers and one sister.  Their oldest sibling was absent but I'm sure if she lived closer, she would be there.  While they all have distinctly different personalities, their dynamics seemed to be great.  Also, I think I'm fairly close with the youngest brother and the youngest sister.  I met the youngest brother when I was eight years old and five years later, I met the youngest sister and at that time, I met the oldest brother of the group.  The oldest sister was already moved out and on her own so I've never met her.

I see their interactions on Facebook and it seems like they have a good line of communication.  They're always making plans to see each other, they always make comments on each other's pictures and they like each other's statuses and I like seeing that.  Siblings, no matter how different their personalities are or what their interests are should stick together.  The only times I believe there should be distance is if they all do something to hurt each other all the time.

Today, that got me thinking about my siblings.  I am not close with my brother and sister, but I'd like to be.

Once upon a time, my brother and I were very close.  He was my confidant, we'd hang out together and after I got married, he'd always come over when I invited him.  We would also exchange birthday presents.  Sometimes we'd hang out together, we'd keep each other's deepest darkest secrets and whenever my brother was in a jam, I would help him out the best I could.  When I would call him and he wasn't there, I'd get a call back almost right away no matter how busy he was.  When we were kids, we'd always share each other's toys and he didn't mind it if I played with his friends when had them over.  He was great and I think he still is.

However, that changed about ten years ago, shortly after he got married.  About a few months into his marriage, he and his wife would come over anytime I invited them, we would hang out together and do things but once he had his son, things started changing and they changed rapidly.

I would invite him to come out to my place and he always declined.  When I would call him, he wouldn't call me back and he just got too busy for me.  I would ask him what he was doing weeks in advance and he never got back to me.  I know why but I am not going to get into that.

My sister and I were never close.  My sister and I have never hanged out or did anything together at all unless it was with my mother.  We never exchanged birthday presents except for my 21st birthday when she took me out.  My sister never let me into her world when we were kids.  During the first half of my childhood, we shared a bedroom and whenever she had friends over, she would barricade me from getting inside.  She would get jealous whenever she had her friends over because they were talking to me.  When she wanted me to leave, she was not nice about it.  She basically drafted me when I got my first job.  She came home one day with a job application and said "We're short-handed at work and you are going to work with us."  I filled it out and a week later, I was working.

Since I suffer from ADD, I had trouble staying on task.  Also, I had a chip on my shoulder so I wasn't the most popular person at work.  My sister was a part of management at the time and her colleagues would ask her what my problem was and she told them about my ADD.  Instead of making things better for me at work, it made things worse and my sister saw that.  She never apologized but she said she tried to make things easier for me but it backfired.  My mother wasn't too pleased with my sister for telling the management about what I suffer from.

For years, I've wanted to have a little talk with her about our non-existent relationship.  I've always felt inadequate to her and how I feel like I have no part in her world.

Today we still aren't close.  She has mentioned getting together for years with me but as I said in my last blog, it was all talk.  Whenever she calls me, it's either she wants something from me or she is around the area where I live and she's lost.  She never calls me to talk or check up on me.  When I gave birth to my son, she was too busy to visit me at the hospital.  When it was his first birthday party, even though I picked her to be his Godmother, she wanted to do something else instead.  I laid a guilt trip on her when she said she wanted to spend her time at her camper instead of attending his first birthday party.  She asked me if she could drop off his present and be on her way and I told her no.  She should give it to my parents who live about a quarter mile from her instead and they could take it over.

I also feel alone in that respect too.  I have a brother and sister and I don't have much to do with them.  Often, I see them making comments on each other's Facebook pages but they don't make comments on mine.  When I read their statuses and something goes wrong, I ask them if they're okay but they never ask me if I'm okay when I'm feeling down or when something bad happens to me. When I was pregnant with my son, I was out driving and I fell into the ditch and they never asked me if I was okay or if my son was okay.  They're always making comments on the pictures they post and sometimes I see that they hang out together.  As I said in my last post, my sister invites my brother to my nephew's hockey games but she never thinks of inviting me.  In the last few years, I've had friends die on me and they never offered condolences or asked me if there is anything they could do.  I would tell them they died and all they could say is "Oh."

A few years ago my mother and I had a talk.  She said it's great that I'm always there for my brother and sister and I'm always checking up on them but she doesn't understand why they don't do the same for me.  She said to me I'm too good to them and I told her maybe it'll all pay off in the end and they will someday reciprocate my kindness but I'm still waiting.

My brother occasionally calls me and checks up on how I'm doing and I'm grateful for that.  He makes comments on my Facebook page as well or he'll like the things I post so it's not all lost.

I've told my sister my sister my problems and she's been a good ear but I think she could do better.

The thing that frightens me about my lack of relationship with my brother and sister is when the day comes and my parents get sick and pass away.  I look at my dad and his brother and they don't have a relationship. My dad is the one who always calls him and visits him at work but my uncle doesn't reciprocate.  They don't even call each other when it's Christmas time.  My dad makes an effort to tell him happy birthday but my uncle doesn't do the same for him.  I can definitely see that when my brother, sister and I get older.  There will be disconnect and I don't want that for us.

Maybe I'm crying over spilled milk from a cow that's not even born yet.  Who knows?  I feel closer to my extended family than I do with my siblings.

The point is, people are selfish.  It doesn't matter if they're related to you or not.  Maybe from now on I won't check up on them and I won't come to their aid when they're going through a difficult time.  I hope my brother and sister never find this blog but if they do, my feelings will be known and maybe that could bring us closer together.

So there you have it.  I hope my blogs will have a more uplifting feel to them soon.  Thank you.

What went wrong?

It has been a while since I blogged anything.  It's probably been since before my son was born when I last posted here.  I'll try to post more.

There has been something on my mind ever since November.  During the last elections, I'm sure people have lost friends over political beliefs.  Our country is so divided that even family members are deleting each other on FB and other social media simply because they don't agree over politics.  I think this is the case here.

Back when I was nine years old, my cousin whom I shall call Vivienne gave birth to her last child; a daughter whom I shall call Alexandria.  I'm not giving names because I want to protect their identities.  On Christmas day when I was nine, I met Alexandria for the first time.  She was barely a week old and I remember asking Vivienne a lot of questions about her.  I wanted to hold her but Vivienne declined.

During my childhood, I had a lot of issues.  I wasn't very mature when I was little and I was diagnosed with ADD at around that time.  There wasn't a lot of knowledge about ADD when I was that young.  It was a fairly new condition that was just recognized so at the time, there was a lot of ignorance about it.  Adults didn't really trust me to play with their kids who were younger than I was so I'm thinking that's why my cousin didn't allow me to hold her week old daughter.

Anyway, I watched Alexandria grow up.  She was my little buddy.  She was very sweet and I thoroughly enjoyed playing with her.  When she celebrated her second Christmas I remember giving her a lot of M&M's.  Her face was all covered in green and red food coloring.  I think her mom was disappointed in me for giving her all that candy but I didn't mind.  I could always count on having a playmate when I saw her and I think she enjoyed playing with me too.

While I was growing up, Vivienne had another daughter who was six months younger than me.  I will call her Ava.  Ava and I didn't really have much to do with each other.  Most of the time, I thought Ava thought she was too good for me.  We didn't hit it off at all at any point of our lives so I didn't have another female cousin to play with on my dad's side.  When Alexandria was born, I had another little girl to play with even if there was a nine year age difference between us.

We got along great for almost 10 years.  Even after my grandparents died, we still saw a lot of Vivienne's family but from 1996 onward, we only saw Vivienne's family sparingly.  First we saw them every holiday and that stopped after Christmas of 1995.  Then it got down to seeing them whenever there was a graduation or wedding.  By 1998, we saw them even less.

I got married in 1999 and Vivienne and her family came to my wedding.  I didn't have time to talk to Alexandria because everyone pulled me in all sorts of directions and mingling with everyone was near impossible.  I would sit down and have a conversation with someone only to be cut off and pulled onto the dance floor.  Don't get me wrong: I had a great time at my wedding but since I have problems with crowds, I  was feeling a little anxiety.  I couldn't even finish a drink or cigarette that night.

Three years later when Alexandria was 16, my husband and I saw her at the mall after not seeing her since my wedding.  When I saw her, I was so happy to see her and I wanted to strike up a conversation with her since it was such a long time.  I said hello to her and something was wrong.  It seemed like she didn't want to talk to me.  She wanted to continue shopping with her friends.  It was as if I was a stranger to her and I don't know why.  My family had been a part of her life since she was born and I played with her every time we saw each other and I was left puzzled, sad and a little angry when I let her run along with her friends.

In 2004, she graduated high school.  I was invited to her party but I declined the invitation.  We had lost touch with the family so much that whenever we saw them it felt as if we were strangers and most of the time, they would finally get around to talking to us when everybody left.  I hated that feeling so it was better for us if we stayed home.

In 2007, her sister Ava got married and I went to her bridal shower prior to that.  Alexandria was there but she didn't talk to me.  The most she said was hello and that was it.  The same applied to her wedding and shortly after their brother's girlfriend was pregnant and she had a shower too.  I went to that shower with my daughter and I found myself being excluded and ignored.  I felt invisible to them and both showers were very awkward to me and I found myself deeply regretting going there.

Fast forward to present day.  I found Alexandria on Facebook and while there wasn't any interaction between us, I always made it a point to tell her happy birthday and I told her I loved how she posted updated pictures of herself and her family.  I also found out how successful she had become with her life.  She now works in the health care industry and it looks like she has a very good position where she is.  This made me very proud of her and a part of me figures that maybe it's for the best that she cut off talking to me throughout the years.  I'm not where I want to be in my life, but nevertheless, I am happy for her.  But this is what gets me.  She blocked me from her Facebook sometime last fall.  For a while, I was wondering where the pictures she posted of herself were and updated pictures of her family and I thought that maybe she outgrew Facebook and deactivated her account.

Then it came clear to me.  Ava and Vivienne posted pictures of the family.  I would see the comments people made and it looked like an incomplete conversation.  I did a search through Google to look her up to see if she still had her facebook and sure enough she did.  I would click on the link to her facebook and I got an error message telling me the account doesn't exist.  I did a search through my husband's and low and behold, there she was.  I asked my sister if she could do a search for me as well and she was nowhere to be found.

I am not angry with her at all.  I'm just hurt and I would give anything to find out why she blocked me.  I have her phone number so I have debated on calling her to find out what's going on with her.  Also, I have thought about talking to her brothers and sister about this but maybe it's best if I let it be.

I don't know what went wrong with her.  Was it something political that I posted that she didn't like or was it that we've been out of touch for so long that I'm no longer relevant to her?

Her birthday came up and I wanted to tell her so I asked her mother if she could do it for me but I never got any feedback from Vivienne.  Families, no matter if you were close at one point or not need to stick together.  I think it's wrong to cut off someone from your life who has been nothing but kind and supportive of you.

Anyway, there you have it.  It feels good to get this off my chest.