I used to think that mine was a tight knit family. We used to have lots of family dinners AND (now this might be quite shocking) we used to actually enjoy each other’s company. I know! Who’d’ve thunk??? There was only the five of us – my Mum and Dad and us three girls – BigSal, myself and Trish and I remember having an almost idyllic childhood full of great family memories and fantastic camping holidays.
There was only 15 months age difference between myself and BigSal and we had to share a room until I was about 14 (oh she used to drive me nuts!) but we often had similar interests, liked similar music, were into the same things and did lots of things together as we had many mutual friends.
My little sister, Trish and I didn’t get along so well when we were really little… I was 10 when she was 6 and BigSal and I had largely grown out of whatever she was into by the time she was into it. But when she was in high school and I was working, we used to hang out a lot together, go shopping a bit… I’d take her to the movies, buy her clothes and ‘right’ brands of sneakers and shit that I would have liked when I was I was still in high school but never had the money for 🙂
Unfortunately Trish and I had a bit of a falling out when I was about 23 or 24… she was staying in my room and looking after all my stuff while I was in Europe for several months (co-incidentally my parents were in Africa at the same time) and when I came home a week early things were shall we say… in a the state of disarray? She had been sleeping with her then boyfriend/now husband in MY bed (yeah this shouldn’t be a big deal but when you’re a little OCD and germophobic like I am…. Ewww!). There was crap everywhere, the house hadn’t been cleaned, the kitchen was a general plague area, there was stains and drips from cups on my expensive stereo equipment, not a thing in the whole house to eat – not even the makings of toast… and then there was a dopey German Shepherd she had ill advisedly acquired that had obviously been bored stupid because it had been running laps of the backyard to the point where there were tracks worn in the grass.
So here was Borys…. straight off a 28 hr flight (half of which was spent sitting beside a gross little masturbating asian guy) arriving in BrisVegas at 0600, expecting a happy homecoming and instead come home to this huge shitty mess. As soon as the shops were open I jumped in the car and went out to do some grocery shopping and then I spent until MIDNIGHT cleaning the house, washing my sheets and trying to figure out what to do about the grass before my parents got back home. Trish didn’t come home that night at all. She stayed at her boyfriend’s place and when she turned up the following morning I was going to have a chat about a few things with her. But she never came into the house… she jumped out of her boyfriend’s car and jumped straight into her car and drove off to work – without coming in to check on anything, without feeding her dog and still not knowing I was back.
Needless to say, by the time she came home from work that afternoon I had had plenty of time to stew… and I did what I often do in such situations – I roared my terrible roar, gnashed my terrible teeth, rolled my terrible eyes, and showed my terrible claws and….. she has never forgiven me for it. I have several times tried to talk to her about it. Tried to talk to her on the phone, wrote her a few letters and emails over the years and basically tried to recover our old friendship. But the little bitch holds a grudge tighter than a frog’s arse is water tight… so I gave up and we’ve ended up an uneasy equillibrium which largely involves me tiptoeing around her and trying not to offend her delicate sensibilities and she for the most part I think prefers to pretend I don’t exist rather than grow the fuck up and try talk to me about it. But que sera sera…. and that’s all I have to say about that.
So yeah, sort of close, we didn’t hate each other and we used to socialize together quite a lot which was always lots of fun. Famliy dinners around the little kitchen table at Mum’s laughing like hyenas at the stupidest of things and then laughing at Dad who’s lopsided grin (Bell’s palsy years ago) used to crack us up anyway. But when my Dad got sick, things changed a lot. The laughter went away and several years on, it hasn’t really returned.
Trish lives out of town so we don’t see her that much. Big Sal is really busy trying to run the Pizza shop, hold down her job at the Govt AND managed two rambunctious preschoolers. My Mum is still trying to learn to live her life all over again without my Dad which as you can imagine is quite the adjustment after nearly 40 years of marriage. We’ve all become so wrapped up in our own lives now… which happens to everyone I guess.
However I’ve just had a bit of a disagreement with the family (unfortunately with my Mum… when I should have been taking it up with my sisters) and I realized that they don’t tell me anything. I’m the last one to hear about plans for family gatherings. Trish turned up here for Mum’s birthday the other week (at my place) and no one told me she was coming. They all went down to Tambourine last weekend to picnic and see the glow worm caves… and I didn’t get invited. Trish cancelled her cabin for the big family cruise we were supposed to be taking next year and didn’t tell me that either (even though I was co-ordinating all the bookings etc). They just don’t tell me anything anymore and I’m starting to feel a little like the poor country cousin,
And worst still…. I thought about our interactions over the last couple of years and I realized tonight that they don’t ask me how I’m going. They never call to see how my back is holding up. They don’t seem to have noticed that I’ve been having a rough time and they haven’t offered to help or anything at all over the last 18 months which have been really fucking hard and painful for me.
As it happens, I think there has been more expressions of sympathy, support and concern coming from my friends who read this journal than there has been from my own family… and that saddens me… quite a lot actually.
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