Sometimes I Wonder About Myself

Of all the lessons I have learned in my lifetime, there is one that, no matter how many times I seem to get burned, I just cannot get it through my head, no matter how many times I stick my hand into that fire. I am talking about the relationship with my sisters. Sometimes I think that these two women were put on this earth simply to drive me nuts and to make my life a living hell. The three of us seem to have a constant battle of "she said this, well she tole me that." It is impossible for the three of us to get along, no matter how hard any of us say that we are trying. There is the older one who deems herself the matriarc and mother of us all. She fancies herself as having raised my younger sister and myself single-handedly. I will admit that she did fill a huge void when we were very young and there were many nights when my parents were having a drunken brawl and my younger sister and I were terrified and she held us while we were crying, but I feel those debts have been paid in full a long time ago. We have paid her back in baby-sitting, in house cleaning, in hospital sitting and in numerous other ways throughout our lives and I don't recall myself ever once throwing any of what I have done back at her, however I can't say the same for her. I have heard many times during my lifetime of the things she has done for me, time and time again, whether large or small. There are eight years difference in our ages and only fifteen months difference between my younger sister and I. She and I grew up extremely close, a fact that drove the older one nearly crazy. She did not like being left out of that loop at all. The fact that we had nothing in common with her during the years of our young married lives seems to completely escape her. Then came the time when changes happened and my younger sister and I grew apart and the path she took was one that I did not agree with her on. I still loved her and cherished her as a sister, I just couldn't embrace her lifestyle as I am sure she felt the same about the path I was on at the time. Our lives took completely different turns. And that's when the lies began. There was not a soul in the family that could believe a thing that she said. In fact, it was common knowledge that she was the one who told anything BUT the truth. And this behavior went on for years. The farther apart she and I grew, the closer together my older sister and I grew. It seemed like our lives were moving along on the same path during this time. Our husbands were nearly the same ages and got along well and they enjoyed one anothers company and so we began spending more time with them. Years passed and I did not see my younger sister. I would talk to her on the phone, but I could tell that things were not right. I knew that some of the things she told me were lies and the funny things was that she knew that I knew it. So, for a long while we left one another alone.

I don't quite remember what happened to change this, but it did change. She and I did become friends again and when my hubby died and I moved back home she was really there for me. I have to say that if it were not for her I would have died of loniliness. But she was also playing one sister against the other as well...but I found this out a little bit too late. And I was so grief stricken that I didn't see it happening either. By the time I left town, three months later, things between my older sister and I were at a disastrous stage. We were not even speaking and I was on the verge of swing her. She had called and asked to see me and I allowed my younger sister to talk me out of going, believing that it was a set up and that she was going to have me arrested for some reason or another. So I left town without even speaking to her. I don't know that if to this day, if my older sister even believes that she told me those things. Once I came here and got settled I decided to leave them both alone and for a long while I did, with the exception of occasional holiday phone calls and visits when I would go back home. Neither of them has come to see me and when I went home only once has my older sister come to me. That was for a birthday party for my 50th, my younger didn't bother to show. Other times I have seen them, it was me going to them.

Now this latest thing. It was a phone call from my older sister to wish me a late Merry Christmas. During the phone call she asked about all my kids and also asked if Robbie was still in Texas. I told her that as far as I knew he was but that I hadn't heard from him in months. A few days later I heard from Faye and I told her about the conversation and she said, "I don't know why she would ask you about Robbie, she knows good and well that Robbie is here living with Cherie. She knows he is going into the Army this month. She saw him standing in my kitchen." Naturally, this made me furious. Then Faye called me back and told me that she asked her why she told me that and she laughed and said "I don't know, I guess I was being a bitch." Now, true to form the older sister denies the whole thing. I had another phone call from the older one telling me she was home, when in fact, she was sitting at the younger ones kitchen table repeating everything I was saying; either to try and start more shit, or to, as she says, see her face as she repeated what I said. But then the other one says that while she was on the phone she was "going about her normal house duties and not paying attention." Yeah, right! Like I believe that. Ya know, I don't tell either of these two any lies and I don't appreciate it when either of them play games and lie to me. I am sick of it! I am too old for these high school games and tired of the whole mess. This crap has been going on with these two my entire life and it is exhausting. Enough is enough already! And yet, I keep going back. I keep allowing them back into my life. I don't understand why I do it. I know that I want to be able to have a "normal" relationship with them, but i also know that this is an impossible dream, so I may as well hang it up. Just forget it and get on with my life. What I have left of life is too little for me to be dragged down and preoccupied by this crap and I have got to quit. So, right now, I am making myself this promise: As for my family, I am vowing from this moment on, that my family includes only my four children and my grandchildren. I have four of them, Brett Jacob, Jillian, Emily and Linzy. That's it! Linzy is the only one of Bud's grandkids that bothers to keep in touch with me. The rest of them have fowwed his kids and have dropped me like a bad cold. Linzy is good about staying in close touch by e-mail and never fails to tell me that she loves me. So I claim her. As much as I love Erica, her mother has poisened her against me. I won't force myself on her. I used to have great grandchildren but Melanie has also chosen to take them out of my life as well. Oh well. I can live with it. I guess you don't miss what you never really had. And I never had Coby anyway. Melissa wouldn't have that. Even if Bud would have lived, she would have taught him to call me Jan, probably. There is no love lost between Melissa and I ever since I told her off when Bud was in the hospital in Texas and she wanted me to leave to bring her car back to her. But that is petty stuff. I am tired of that family not liking me for their silly reasons, just as I am tired of fighting with my sisters over their stupid made up lies and silliness. If they want to keep this crap up, they will have to do it without me. They can fight with themselves because I quit playing their game.

Just watch!

Beginnings and Endings

I don't know so much anymore about life lessons or about wisdom; all I am sure about is that time passes, usually much too fast and things change while so much still stays the same. If you'll think about that for a minute you'll know what I mean by it. I think the changes I am talking about are the ones that come gradually. Sometimes you don't even seem to notice that the changes are taking place until you stop one day and look around and realize that your whole life is moving in a different direction or that your focus has changed. A lot of times that also simply comes with age. These days I am finding that a lot of things simply come with age. But then I am realizing that age is bothering me just a bit these days. That is probably because it is creeping up on me rapidly. It seems like it was only yesterday that I was 25.....wasn't I? How can I be 51 already? I am going to turn 52 this year and I don't know how that happened so fast. What was I doing whole the years added up so quickly? And they added up all on my face, too! That's one of the hardest parts of this aging thing to take, if you want to know the complete truth. And here I am seeing all these women on television that are my age and older who are aging so gracefully and are so active and so healthy and then her I come...all shriveled and wrinkled, walking with a cane for God's sake and moaning and groaning and aching and hurting and not being able to do squat. Hell, I can't even afford half way decent make up to hide my horrible aging. It's so disgusting and discouraging. And then sometimes I wonder, am I blaming everything on this damn disease? To be perfectly honest, this damn disease has ruined my life. I have lost out on so much because of it. Like making a decent living in the first place. Having to depent on friggin' Social Security Disability is the worst way in the world to have to live. I have thought so many times that I should just throw that pitance away and go out and get a job. But a job at doing what? Who in the owrld is going to hire a nearly 52 year old shrivled up old woman who has not worked outside the home since 1988? Any skills that I had are surely atrophied by now. I can't imagine that I could even wait tables decently. Hell, I couldn't wait tables decently when I COULD wait tables!! On my BEST day I spilled a bowl of soup all in some poor man's lap. I'd be a friggin' menace as a waitress, let's face it. And there is no way I could do secertarial work again. Get real. That is something that no business person in theor right mind would hire me to do. I wonder if I could run a cash register at a grocery store? I guess I could probably do that. But could we survive on a minumum wage job, because surely that is all that would pay. And can I even stad on my feet for that many hours a week? And look at what I would lose to do that? I have to think about the health care benefits that I have, if nothing else. Right now Braxton and I do have all our medical paid for. We don;t have anything else but we do have that. Can I afford to give that up? Only if I don;t need any more meds I can. Only if I can be assured that my kid will never be sick or hurt, I could. Gee, how can I live the rest of my life with this spinal disease and no medication? OK enough of that stupid idea. Let me go back to living on Social Security and being poor. Things will get better once Nancy and I get the house and car paid off, unless we need another car which is highly likely. But we don;t have to have much of a car payment either. So, in about four years, things should get better. Big whoop. I've lived thru worse. I just hate it. I guess I can go four years without seeing my kids and my grandkids. That's the hardest part. But I guess when it gets bad enough on the kids they will come out and see me. I hope. See, this is where my problem is right at this very moment. I am quite frankly, feeling sorry for myself. How pitiful is that? Oh woe is me! How funny I am some days. I can be so pitiful. And I really have no reason to be pitiful. I honestly have much to be thankful and happy for, let's face it. Come on, old girl, you really are very blessed, you are just too wrapped up in yourself to see it at this moment. But if I were completely honest with myself, I would tell myself that ever since the day that Bud died I have been walking around feeling sorry for me. I should be so ashamed of myself.

I had a little more than sixteen good years with that man. He loved me in the only way he knew how to love and he did a good job of it. I wanted for very little. He was very attentive. He tried so hard to give me all of my heart's desires and he tried hard to keep me as happy as he could. I came first with him more times than not. Bud really was the man of my dreams and there are so many women who can never say that they had that many years with the man of their dreams. So in that respect right there, I have much to be grateful and blessed for. I lost him early, yes. But the time we did have together was good. If I weigh all of it out, we had so many more good years than bad ones and as I look back on it I don't even remember the bad times. It's only the good that sticks out in my memory. And that's as it should be. I can remember him now and smile, instead of cry like I did for so very long. And I am not alone now. I am blessed with a sweet friend and companion. I have a caring, loving relationship that never causes me a minute's grief. I know that I always come first and when it comes right down to it, things are always done my way. I couldn't ask for better than that. There is no bickering and arguing in our home. There is no petty jealousy. I have never once sat here and wondered when the door was going to open, or if I was going to be left alone for dinner. I have a constant companion. And if I choose to, I am able to come and go as I please. I have the best of all worlds. Yes, I am blessed and I have much to be thankful for. Most importantly, I know without any doubt, that I am loved. Everyone needs to know that they are loved. We all need to feel love and we all need to have love in our lives, no matter where it comes from. And I have that. So why do I think that I have a right to feel sorry for myself? Because I was treated badly after Bud died, by his children? Hoiw stupid am I? This is something that I knew was going ot happen years before it actually took place. I knew that Mark was going to be as ugly as he was. I knew that Arlene was going to turn on me. I knew that Christy and Jon were going to ignore me and act as if I never existed. I knew every bit of this and even told Bud that it would happen. So why was I so surprised when it actually happened exactly the way that I said would? And why have I had so much trouble accepting and getting over the way I have been treated? I have acted no better than the four of them have in reality because I have NOT gotten over it and I have NOT been able to take it all in stride. I think it is time that I told myself to simply, "GET A GRIP!" It really is time to move on and forget them.

Since this is the beginning of a new year I believe that this is the perfect time to put all of this behind me once and for all. I think it is time for me to move ahead and quit looking back. I really do need to get on with my life. I think that I have to let Bud and his children go. I know that I will be better for it and after all, isn't that what counts now? Braxton and I are the ones that are left here to carry on. We are the ones that have to pick up the pieces and go on, so he and I are the two people that matter more than anyone else. Certainly we are more important than Bud is because he is no longer here. So I have got to see to it that Braxton and I are taken care of first and foremost. So, right now, this minute I am making a vow....a promise....to put my son and I FIRST, TO FORGET THE PEOPLE WHO LEFT THE TWO OF US BEHIND, TO FORGET THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE SET OUT TO HURT AND DESTROY. The past is the past and I have got to bury the past along with Bud. I loved him so very much and there was so much about the past that I loved as well. But there were also things about the past that I was not so crazy about. Now I don;t have to deal with any of it any longer.

WOW! What a soul cleansing!! Honestly, that's exactly what I feel like at this minute....like I have cleaned out my very soul. What a great feeling! Lord, please help me to stay on this very productive high. I did not come here to hurt anyone...I honestly do not think that I did, but if hurt was any ulterior motive, please help me to aknowledge it and then to get rid of it. I don't want to carry any bitterness with me as a result of my precious Bud. I never again want to cry because it is over. I only want to remember him and smile......BECAUSE IT HAPPENED.

Bloodlines

When I was a child my younger sister and I were so very close to one another it was almost as if we were an extension of one another. I guess with the horrible childhood we had, there were times when we clung to one another and I know that if I didn't have her while I was growing up I would have surely died. And while I also needed my older sister at the same time, we were in no way as close as Faye and I were. And then came the day that it went bad. I can almost remember the very day that it happened, too. It seems like one day we were there for one another and then the next day everything fell apart. It no longer matters why it only matters that it happened and it's lasted for most of our adult lives. And during this time the relationship between the three of us sisters has been so hard to maintain most of the time. It's always been a love hate thing with all three of us. There have been times that I have wondered if Mama were alive if things would be so hard between us. So many times we have all said that we are all that we have and that we have to stay close and that there is no reason for the way that we act and yet we still cannot seem to get along. One of us seems to always be trying to undermine the other one. There is always one of us telling another one of us one lie of some kind or playing some kind of game that ends up hurting the other one. It has always been that only two of us can be friends at a time. It's either Faye and Barbara against Jan, or Jan and Faye against Barbara, or Barbara and Jan against Faye or...well, you get the idea. It's a completely rediculous way for three grown women to act when you get right down to it.

For the past fifteen years or so I have not had a lot to do with either of them. I have lived off in another state away from the two of them and quite frankly I have liked it that way, although I have hated living away from my kids. The only bonus has been that I have not had to put up with my sisters. For the three months that I did live back in New Orleans after bud died I nearly lost my mind with the two of them, although Faye was my saving grace, Barbara nearly caused me to literally lose my mind after she had helped me tremendously while I was staying with her before I found my own apt. But as soon as I moved into my own place she began acting as if I were the enemy for some strange reason. Well, I say it is for some strange reason but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is because of a drug problem she has. In reality we are all addicted to pain killers. Me because of a spinal disease, Faye because of repeated back surgeries and now because she has a touch of the same disease and Barbara because she wants to be. That is a sad situation. She has lost husband number two and now she is determinded to destroy herself because she is angry at the world. And in the process of destroying herself she is trying to take as many people as possible with her. But I have decided that she is not taking me along with her, no matter what.

After quite a long time, I finally touched base with Faye today and I have to say that I enjoyed talking to her so very much. She was so much like her old self and I realized that this is the sister that I miss so much. But I can never seem to count on her to stay this way. It seems like that as soon as I begin to trust her to be this sister she tells me some huge lie and the shit starts all over again. My problem now is how to keep from being sucked in again while I have a relationship with her that I so desperately want. And I know that if I begin a relationship with her Barbara is going to get jealous and start her campaign to undermine it in some way. It happens everytime. It always does. And no matter how ready I seem to be for it, I can't protect myself from what I know will happen. So, what do I do? Do I just forget trying to have any relationship with my little sister for the rest of my life? She and I are both in our 50's. We are Grandmother's for God's sake. Surely, you would think we could act like adults at this time in our lives, wouldn't you? And yet I wounder. I know that Barbara is not capeable of it. Faye told me tonight on the phone that Barbara is convinced, even tho she is healthy, that she is dying and so she has decided that she wants to go out loaded, like a complete idiot junkie. So, I know there is no hope for her or for a relationship. I don' even want one with her. In fact, all I want to do where she is concerned is to cuss her out for the things she told me on the phone when she called me the other day and I am going to in the next day or so. She saw Robbie at Faye's a couple of days before Christmas and probably even asked him if he had talked to me, which he would have told her no if he were telling the truth, and when she called me she asked me if I had heard from Robbie and was he still in Texas, instead of telling me that she has seen him at Faye's. Now, why would she have done that if not to just be mean? Why would she have just wanted to rub it in my face that Christmas had come and gone and she wanted to remind me that I had not heard from my own son? What a mean vicious woman she is and I plan on telling her so. She has the unmittigated gall to say, "I love you" to me and then to do something like that to me. I am going to tell her to never call me again, that I don't care to hear from her. The only time I hear from her is when she is loaded anyway and I am going to tell her that too. She calls me last summer to ask me if I want to go on a cruise with she and Faye knowing FULL WELL that I could not afford a cruise, but do you think she would have offered to pay my way when we all know she could have easily afforded it? Oh hell no! She also knew that I had no money for Christmas and what in the world could a person buy a 13 year old from the dollar store and yet she asks me if I couldn't have gone to the dollar store for my kid! Would she have gone for her kid? No she would have never insulted hers that way. When braxton was a baby she wanted to be his grandmother. But she only wanted the glory. She never wanted the responsibility of doing anything for him. A grandmother's job is for life and she takes that responsibility seriously. But Barbara is not like that. It never occured to her to call and see if he had what he needed or even if he had anything. Yet she is so quick to throw in my face what she has done for me in my life.

This was not supposed to be a "bitch about Barbara post." It was supposed to be a post about how good it felt to be in touch with Faye again and how much I wanted that relationship to continue and hopefully to grow again and to get back on track. Now that the two of us are older and hopefully have more sense and are more mature you would think that we can handle it. I am praying so anyway. As for my older sister, that is a lost cause and I am going to forget about it. I don;t have the energy that she takes. That is sad, too. And I am so sorry that it has to be that way. But it does. That's just the way things are sometimes. You pick your friends, not your family, sadly.