If a tree falls in the forest...

I have two main excuses for not writing:

1) No one was writing to me... I didn't really have a topic, a prompt, or *gasp* an audience

2) I am in the middle of an epic battle with my sister. Why? Because she's pregnant. This is good news. She is 29 and married. The issue is that she told my mother that she didn't want to tell me because she was afraid I would be "negative". Here's the thing - I'm not a negative person. Certainly, I'm no optimist. I can be blunt, true. Yes, I have a long and storied history of making cheap jokes at the expense of my friends. And I am pretty sarcastic and cynical, but negative? Maybe to myself about myself, but to others? Gloom and doom? Sorry, she's missed the boat.

So I called her on it. Here's a few lines of her retort:
"... I think that I've always been your little sister and not a separate adult that is respected as you would your peers. I don't often think that you care to ask me who I am or what I'm thinking because you assume to know. Partly, it is my fault ... I don't make extra effort to expose you or mom to my thoughts b/c I don't think they'll be received well."

Confusing, isn't it? Lot's of "you don't ask" and "I don't tell you". Sounds like some kind of f'd up government policy. She ends her message by saying she wants us to have a close relationship. Do I let it go? Of course not! I wrote back and asked her to reread what she wrote about me. I told her I would not want to have a relationship with the person she described. I was trying to get her to see that she was being irrational, by asking "Why do you want a relationship with me?"

She writes:
"If that is the impression you got from my email than I apologize for coming off that way. I, of course, value you as a person and as my sister. "
(Doesn't really address the question does it?)

But then she goes on...
"I really don't know what to say now because I think you're in a place in which you may attack whatever I say and I won't be able to say anything right."
(Huh? Are you following this?)

And there's more:
"I honestly feel like there may be something else going on in your life, some other stresses, that are contributing to how you're reacting to this situation. "

Hello! I was laughing as I read all of this. What can I do at this point? This is the danger of email. She is obviously reading stuff that I'm not writing. There is a whole dynamic here that has been put in play over the last 30 years - give or take.

It is true that I was a pretty lousy mother to her (I meant mother, not sister, keep reading). The verbal fights were beyond what any "normal" family would have ever experienced, and the physical fights were brutal. We bloodied each other on a pretty regular basis. Plus, the psychological tortures...

• I locked her in my accordion case (yes, I played the accordion, but at age 8 I had Godzilla-like upper body strength);
• She closed the garage door on me...I was trapped for over 3 hours;
• I hung her teddy bear from the living room curtain;
• She wrote my name in toothpaste all over the bathroom and laughed as my dad literally beat me unconscious (note: she claims she stopped laughing at that point and begged dad to call 911, but who knows the truth?...I certainly didn't wake up in the hospital);
• I convinced her that she could jump off the roof with a hefty trash bag, which would certainly work like a parachute (in my defense, I really believed myself)

Anyway, you get the image. This went on for more than a decade. My parents were out of the picture as parents. My mother left for work at 6:00 a.m. and came home from law school at 11:00 at night. That's when the yelling and nagging would start. A handful of times she'd realize her neglect and take us somewhere as a "family", but that didn't start happening until after she became an attorney - years after. By that point I was annoyed that fake family time was cutting into my evening plans.

My dad was always drinking and had minimum wage type jobs where he worked weird hours. He'd leave for work somewhere between 2:00 - 5:00 in the afternoon and would show up drunk either in the middle of the night or the early morning.

The pattern changed for me in high school when I made a friend who changed my life. A friend who showed me the power of feminine allure...and after that, I didn't need a home. I crashed at her place or at fancy hotels. For my sister life got better too because I was the source of all evil to her at that time so my absence brought more stability to her life.

The problem was that in her mind I had become a whore.

Wait, hear me out on this one...

I really think she thought that I was out on the streets doing unspeakable things with nasty old men for cash. That wasn't it at all, but because she needed to be the opposite of me at all times, she reacted against this person she imagined by becoming practically puritanical. In college she rebuffed Warrick Dunn because he was a football player and you "know what they're after". (When she told me this, I practically got on a plane and flew down there; 10% to slap her and 90% to see whether Warrick had some free time after practice).

You're looking for a point... hang in there... I do have one...

So she has become someone so hung up about sex, that she is having trouble telling people that she is pregnant. She feels it is too private and personal. That's right... I love to talk about sex. I can turn almost any topic sexual. Meanwhile, my sister cannot talk about being pregnant because it would mean admitting that at age 29, she has had *gasp* s-e-x (shhhhhh!) with her husband.

So the two really sad things I get from our email exchange are that:

1) My sister has warped her personally so badly, that she has to hostilely accuse me of being hostile because she is not sure how to feel about her pregnancy. She knows she is supposed to be elated, but she's not, so d*mn it, it must be someone's fault.

2) I caused that with my callous treatment of her when we were kids. Not the crappy fights - she gave as good as she got... whether she wants to admit that now or play the victim. But, the fact that I transformed my life in a way that I did not share with her. She listened to my dad rail on and on that I was a dirty whore and she believed it. The problem is that my dad may have been right (in some people's view) when I was 15 or 16, but he started calling me that when I was 5. As a small child, it was easier (safer, less confusing) for her to see me the way my father saw me, than to see her precious daddy - whom she has always loved with all her heart - for the drunken child abuser that he was.

I am worried about her but what can I do? Please don't dredge up the fact that I have a master's degree in counseling... I can't help her. First of all, I don't believe in counseling as it is professionally practiced (at least how it is practiced here in the US). Secondly, she is projecting her feelings on to me. Ultimately, she will find her way out all on her own. She is not depressed - just hostile.

I was hostile for a while. I don't mean "I felt hostile" or "I was being hostile". I mean I personified hostile...and while I was, I could be nothing else. There wasn't any room. "Hostile" demands all the space in your mind so it drives all other things out. I had to take all the clutter "hostile" spread around my life and get rid of it piece by piece.

A lot I threw out, and some I packed away. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you have to throw everything away. Some things make you who you are and should never be thrown away.

...Two weeks ago, I saw my father for the first time in years.