Saturday, Sisters, and Stuff

The weather is lovely today. It is about 70 degrees outside and mostly cloudy. I swear it feels like fall!

So why am I sitting here at the computer? I've been paying the bills and fixing up my blog and just doing nothing I don't want to do. I got up at 10:30!! Yes I did. And my neck hurt a little but I felt as if I had plenty of sleep for the first time in weeks. Of course, I didn't go to bed until midnight. I simply can't sleep. I don't know what to do about it. Someone said sleep in the spare room but I like my bed and want my own bed. That room is small and while it has a good bed it is like sleeping in a hotel room. I want MY room. So, unresolved issue.

I've been reading blogs but few of you have new stuff at this point so I'm sort of caught up. My blog is a bit odd however. I read my sister's blog this a.m. and she's in a meltdown. I know she'll bounce back but I hate it when that happens.

Stuck in the Middle is my sister, youngest of three sisters, fourth of seven children. See, stuck in the middle between two sets of three.

I like my sisters. They are wonderful to be around and we have a great time together. The two of them grew up with our mother while I grew up with our mother's mother. I, along with one brother, were left with her parents so she could go party and get pregnant the third time. With the third pregnancy, her parents told her they wouldn't take that baby so she had to get married. She found a man, not the baby's father, and married him. This was in the early 60's. She then proceeded to have three more children, divorced the father, had numerous boyfriends but no children, then, married an old man and had a seventh.

Anyway the five youngest were forced to stay with our mother. She is the most dysfunctional person on the planet. A pathological liar and just about anything else you can imagine. Worst parent in history. I'll swear to it.

Second sister (third of seven) ran away 20 years ago and lives in the same town I do. Stuck is just that. She's run away dozens of times and always goes back there. The last time she left we though it was for good but her husband, my wonderful brother-in-law whom I adore but who doesn't always think well (he's the one who set fire to himself), left the military and went back... taking Stuck with him. Bad move.

Stuck is the sister who feels responsible for all of them since sister #2 left. Before that, sister #2 felt this calling. She has since overcome that particular hangup. Stuck seems stuck. I've attempted numerous methods to unstick her but she resists. She resist because she feels unloved and by taking care of others she feels she will be loved. She isn't unloved. She is just unloved by those she wants to love her. She knows those of us who love her but doesn't understand why THEY don't. And as usual, what we can't have or understand is what we demand.

So, she is having a bad time right now feeling she has made a mistake but not wanting anyone to voice her own opinion. She is doing what she thinks is right. She's got a good heart just misplaced loyalties.

I love my brothers, too. Some people, no matter how much you help them, will always go back to their old ways. I hope that is not the case here but suspect it will be. So at some point, everyone must be held accountable for their own actions and choices. We can give helping hands but sometimes, withholding our help is better for them.

God withholds things we want and think we need all the time. He took the man I know I can't live without. It wasn't right. Just ask me. He took all the hopes and dreams we shared and tossed them out the window. Never asked me once if I minded or cared. Just did it. They tell me I'll get over it. They tell me it was "God's will". They tell me "he's in a better place". They say all manner of stupid things. I don't believe any of that and I get pretty angry when they say it. But I smile and never let on. See, if I don't agree with you, YOU are wrong and I am right.

You can say all day "We don't know what God has planned." You know what I want to say to that? "I DON"T CARE!" But I don't say it. I think it. I talk to God about it. I hope he understands. I can't help it if he doesn't. I pray for him to forgive me if I'm wrong but I still feel what I feel. I do what I think is the right thing. I accept his right to do what he wants to do for whatever reasons he has but I DON"T AGREE WITH THIS.

I'm told this is the normal path of grief and loss. It is normal to feel these things. It is normal to resent having the obvious pointed out to you, to be told you may think you are right but you aren't. I hate it. But I think about it. I listen. I hope that my sanity will come back and I will see all this glorious truth people keep spouting at me. That someday I will wake up and the sun will shine and I'll laugh and run in it and be excited about something and everything will be normal. But to do that I MUST forget my husband. You don't agree with that but it is true. To be carefree and happy and rid of this dark cloud I must bury him completely. He has to die to ME.

That is truth. It is unacceptable.

Stuck is sort of there, too. She is wrong in her thinking. And those who care for her are concerned because we know the pattern. Our emotions are not tied up in her situation. We aren't struggling to reach out and grasp what we think we need. We aren't trying to replace a mother's love with something or someone else. We aren't clinging to something that is gone, that never was.

She is a loving person and deserves to be loved in return. And she is. But she keeps trying to fill her life with people who will fail her every time. She does it for the right reasons. As I said she loves them all and cares. So, those of us who care for her, warn her. Every single time. She hates that. She doesn't agree with it. And she forgets those who do love her and she slaps away the hands that are only trying to hold her up.

I have no illusions about the people I love. And I know who loves me. Some fall into both catagories but not all whom I love, love me. Stuck may get mad at me for posting this. That's ok. She knows I do love her and care about her. But she also knows I speak my mind to her. I left her a note on her blog to tell her today.

I hope this blog is evidence too, that she is loved and cared for and that even if what she is doing turns bad for her, we'll still love her and care for her. But when we feel she is putting herself in harms way we WILL say so. Because we love her.

Besides, they've all been mad at me before. I've learned it just doesn't matter. Life is shorter than we think.

So, with that, I'm going to get Mike to come cut my yard while it is cool out. I'll then go do something silly, I think. Today might be a good day if I can keep the momentum up.

Back later, probably.