Thicker Than Water?

Growing up sucks. And I’m not just talking about adulthood and all of the trappings and responsibilities and debt that go with it. I’m talking about emotionally growing up, and I’m still in the process. There are some truths, MY truths that I’m grappling with to the point that I’m a little uncomfortable writing about them. The fact that this makes me cringe is probably a fairly strong sign that I should keep going, keep writing, and get all this out of my head.

Blood is thicker than water. Family should come first, and will always be there for you. It’s a requirement to maintain relationships as you get older, and work hard at staying close to your siblings! Right? Well, as I’ve gotten older and my relationships with my remaining family have undergone a lot of changes, I’ve adjusted my beliefs about this. I do believe that it’s important that I maintain my relationships with my siblings, but I no longer believe that these relationships need to be close, as far as my definition of “close” goes.

• Close: A relationship that incorporates total trust. A relationship in which you can share your true feelings, your weaknesses, your fears and pain. Someone who will support you in your bellyaching, but tell you when it’s too much. Someone who will celebrate with you when wonderful things happen. And this relationship is reciprocal, you will listen to the other person and be just as present and supportive as they are to you.

I am really blessed and always have been with the friendships in my life that I have managed to maintain. With two especially, we have gotten even closer over the past few years as we have all dealt with deaths and divorce. These sad things have re-solidified the bond that’s always been there for over 20 years. These two are my go-to people. I have other close friends as well, and consider my husband my best friend.

I think I truly trust maybe 4-5 people. These are the folks I’m “close” with, and none of them are blood related. I’m friendly with a lot of people, partially because of my job. But true openness and candor is reserved for just a few. I’ve spent the last few years feeling guilty about this fact. My truth is that I’ve spent a huge chunk of my life trying to be “close” to my siblings. Now at 43, I think it’s time to accept that it’s not going to happen, at least not in the way I’d always hoped.

I thought that I had a very close relationship with one of my siblings for most of my life. However, when our father died three years ago, a lot changed. I don't particularly trust this person, and I no longer feel that I’m being paranoid, or over-sensitive, or immature about this decision. I think I’m being smart. I love them, and want the best for them. I am trying and will continue to try to maintain a decent, civil relationship, but it will never be close again. That has to be okay and I need to accept it. We exist in different orbits and see the world completely differently. While I try to be supportive and non-judgmental, I’m sure I fall short. And I am most definitely judged, a fact of which I have myriad examples that I won’t go into. I don’t believe I’m respected, or even liked very much, to be honest. I know that I have disappointed this person over and over and over through the years because they have informed me of this. There is a standard I can’t reach. Apparently I’ve never been able to reach it. Realizing this was somewhat freeing, as I no longer think it’s necessary to try to meet these expectations. It’s made me reflect on all the years, decades in fact, during which I have turned and twisted myself into knots trying to stuff myself into some magically shaped box in order to please them. That’s clearly been a failed endeavor. So, here we are today. I care about these people, of course I do. But will I ever really expose my feelings and open up completely to them again? It doesn’t look promising.

My relationship with my other sibling has improved a lot over the past few years, as we didn’t grow up being close. The lines of communication have gotten better, and we’ve both been able to share more. However, I never really know what I’m going to get from this individual. I’ll be feeling secure and happy with things, and share a little too much (in retrospect). Then I’ll get walloped. It’s happened numerous times over the years, and I’m not going to pretend that I haven’t fought back. There have been times when our disagreements have gotten truly ugly, with endless bickering emails and letters. I will say that now, I try very hard to remain neutral and deal with things calmly, even when upset. It seems to work most of the time.

One of the reasons for this necessary distance was born out of the fact that I am the youngest of three by quite a margin, 5 ½ years for one and 8 ½ years for the other. The three of us didn’t grow up together, or even with the same parents. I have no recollection of my parents ever being together, while one of my siblings lived within an “intact” family for 12 years. My parents divorced and my other sibling moved out of my mother’s home at 14 to go live with our father. Of course I spent a lot of time at my dad’s house, and got to see my sibling on a regular basis, but my mother had primary custody of me. From the age of 10 until I moved away to college, I lived with my mom and boarders that rented the extra rooms in our house. My upbringing was weird, and unconventional. My mom and I have discussed this and I’ve made peace with it. On the brighter side, my humor and sarcasm are direct results of my childhood, and those traits have kept me afloat forever. One of my siblings has said that I’ve never “left” mom’s house and “whatever happened to you there”. I was also encouraged to “fix whatever it is in you that’s broken.” Wow. Well, you know, it’s not a choice I would have made as a parent, to have my daughter alone with strangers for 8 years, but nothing happened to me. As someone who has been in counseling at least a dozen times, and over-thinks everything, and chose to become a psychologist, I can say with 100% certainty that I came out of that living situation un-abused. It’s been a well covered subject.

I’m on great terms with my mother, and that hasn’t always been the case. We’ve had our own jungles to navigate through, and I think we’ve come out on the other side. I truly enjoy her company and am grateful for the relationship we have now. But I wasn’t “close” to my mom growing up, so it’s still different. We had amazing moments and trips that I cherish, and I’m thankful for many, many things that she’s taught me. There wasn’t that close bond when I was younger though, and I think she’d agree with that. I don’t distrust my mom by any means, but she’s not particularly interested in hearing my woes. It’s just not her bag, and I get it. I absolutely love and respect my mother.

I’m also acutely aware that a lot of the changes and realizations coincided with my father’s death. It’s been three years now, and I was exceptionally close to him. In a lot of ways, we may have been too close. He confided a lot in me, too much probably. Ours was a complicated relationship, but very close nonetheless. His listening skills were unparalleled. He knew, welcomed, and loved all of my friends. Sometimes I think that some of them miss him as much as I do. That loss hit me extremely hard, even though he’d been suffering and we expected it. He was my touchstone, and I could go to him with anything. Sometimes his responses would annoy me, and he liked to talk about what was going on with him, a LOT. But we had the kind of relationship where I could say, “Dad? You’ve told me the same story now like four times, can I have the floor?”, and no one would be offended. He found humor in normal, day to day life. We had fun together, he was always silly. I remember once when there was a spider in my room and I was being a total girl and wanting him to come kill it. He came in my room, looked at the spider and said, “Oh. That’s just Rupert.” and walked out. Then I felt like I couldn’t kill it, because it now had a name, and a really cool name at that! Rupert hung out for awhile. So the loss of that bond took a chunk out of me.

With our father gone, things got really odd between me and my siblings. We really only sat down once, all together, to divide up duties and choose a date for the memorial, and that was the day after he died in the house he died in. I understand enough about grief now to understand that people react to death in a lot of different ways, but I was sad and disappointed. I had hoped and expected that the three of us would sit down more than once and remember and talk and laugh about dad. I remembered when we went and spread my grandmother’s ashes in the ocean off Laguna Beach. After her ashes were gone, my mom and her siblings all hugged in what looked like a huddle on the boat. We never huddled. We still haven’t. The first Thanksgiving after his death, we were all together and no one even mentioned his name. Maybe we were all waiting for one of the other ones to bring him up, I don’t know. That bond, that we had all lost our beloved father, has never materialized. I tried once, shortly after his death. I was having a really difficult time one day and I shared it with one of my siblings. The response I got was that I should be happy we had him, not sad he was gone. I understand that sentiment, but on that particular day I was just incredibly sad. My sibling made the analogy of having a really amazing dessert like crème brulee. Shouldn’t I be happy I got to eat this amazing treat and not be upset that it was gone? Hmmmmm. Dad as custard. I realized at that point that we were not on the same page and that we both were grieving in vastly different ways. Yes, I am more emotional by far, but DAMN. Crème brulee?? He’d been gone less than a year. Watching dad die for four years was excruciatingly hard, and I know it was awful for all three of us, and three years later we still have never all talked about it. That makes me sad, but it also makes me feel extremely guarded.

Another point of contention, at least with one sibling, is that I moved away from LA. I moved to San Francisco when I was 20 years old and never looked back south again. It was the single best decision I have made in life. However, one sibling feels as though I was running away from my family. I honestly don't  understand this outlook, I think people are supposed to grow up and move and go about their lives. I wasn't running FROM anything, I was running TO the life that was waiting for me. However, I have been accused of abandoning my family more than once. My mom has said it's because I'm missed-maybe. It's not as though I haven't kept in touch via phone, email, and visits. Hell, I only live 300 miles away too! I have a cousin who moved to a different country and has made his life out there and it doesn't appear to be an issue. I love my family, but I will never regret moving from LA. In addition to needing to go carve my path and decide what I wanted and who I was, I'm not a big fan of LA. I can have an opinion.

So I am in the process of re-framing these relationships. I think as adults, we can form our own families. My priority is with the one I've created with my husband and my children. I'm lucky to have the friendships I do, and they will remain family in my life until I die.  I want relationships with my siblings, but my outlook and expectations have changed. Theirs may not have changed, and I'll have to deal with that when the issue arises. I am dead tired from trying to please people, and I need to stop. I can love people without doing back flips and agreeing to things I don't want to do.  I also need to be prepared for this to be perceived as "not good enough". Oh well...I'm 43 and don't really have to answer to anyone but God and myself.

One of my favorite movies with some of the best lines EVER is Garden State. One scene has resonated with me for years. The main character has returned home for his mother's funeral and is talking about the idea of home:

"It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place."

Sometimes I miss the imaginary place too, but I'm living my life today, where I live now.  And I don't want to go backwards. I hope in time that we can go forward together, but if not, that's okay too.