Family shit

[brightbluegirl]

What my mother sent to my brother

Dear Matt,

I forgot to tell Susan about you calling collect, but it is not a good
idea to be calling between 11:30 am and 3:30 pm anyway which is when she
is in, since I go home at that time. Often I nap, which enables me to
work out at 6 am and then put in a very full 9 hour workday, just about
everyday. So you should try to call me between 3:30 and 4 like I
suggested or on Saturdays before 2:30 pm. Your schedule is not as tight
as mine as far as I know so you should be able to manage that.

Do I sound p/o 'd with you? Well as a matter of fact, I guess I am. I
am a little perturbed about your owing me $100 and I take outstanding
debts seriously. When I got your contacts for you, I agreed to your
saying that you couldn't pay me back the $100 right away but my right
away does not mean never and does not mean months and months. I assumed
you were good for your word and would pay me back in a month or two but
I have had no word about it from you. I can only conclude that you were
not serious about paying me back. If my conclusion is wrong, please let
me know and I will be sooooooo sorry. If my conclusion is correct, well
then I will be rethinking my unthinking quick help to you. Makes sense
to me.

I am also more than a little perturbed that you are not working. This
is very serious. Grownups work. End of story.

I still love you!! but I am not happy. C'mon son. David Suzuki says he
has 3 criteria that he checks to know if he should do something or not.
If he does so and so, will his wife still love him?, his parents still
be proud of him? and his kids still respect him? If the answer is yes
to all 3 he goes ahead. I think you get my drift.

If you want to be angry now and not call me, that's up to you. I'll
miss you and love you but I don't want any crap.

Love,
Mom

---

What my brother sent to me

Hey Lisa,
Long time to talk to. I hope you are doing well! I
think of you often. Especially yesterday, it was the
coldest day in 5 years here. -32 without the
windchill!
Anyway, it seems odd that we only contact each other
when we are in need of some big-time support, but here
goes; Mom just sent me a big time bitch letter, and I
really want to tell herself to go fuck herself, but
I'm not going to.
Wow. I was having a great day until I got that...
What did I ever to do her eh? Why is this woman so
prone to misunderstanding? If you don't call her,
it's cuz you don't care, or whatever.
Your not like that right? If I don't call, you still
know I love you? Well, I hope so. As I told mom, we
will be getting a proper phone soon, so long distance
calls will be a little easier to make.
I hope I didn't unload on you too much. Trust me, I
am still holding back. GRRRRR!
Well. I feel better. A little.
(electric hug)
Things are going well with Mich and I. I am finally
starting to get my life back in order, as I have been
pretty messed up over the last few months-Mich's and
my breakup and reuniting, my being physically
threatened and verbally abused at the Y... Wanting to
retalliate and not doing so... And finally, leaving
St.Catharines. I have had nightmares on a regular
bases, and have been even more in the dark about what
I'm meant to do with my life.
Lately, things have been starting to unravel in my
brain, and I have a lot going for me right now. Mich
has been absolutely wonderful in supporting me when
there was noone else to, and we have been lucky
financially so that I didn't have to worry about that
stuff too much. I think I also have some answers
about what I am going to do with myself.
There, I am feeling much better.
I'm really sorry that we didn't get you anything for
Christmas, it's not that we weren't thinking of you,
that's for sure.
Well, enough is enough eh?
Matt

---

What I sent to my brother

Hey Matt,

Sorry it took me so long to reply - I asked Mom to send me a copy of the letter she sent you, so I could be as objective as I can in this whole thing.

I think the big problems here are communication between you and Mom. Before Mom sent you that message, she and I talked about it, but I think what she wanted to say got lost in the message. I think a lot of what she wanted to say is actually subtext, and all that came across was her anger.

The problem isn't when you were calling. Yeah, you've been calling at a different time than she wanted you to, but I think that was an honest mistake, wasn't it? Mom wants you to call between 3:30 and 4:30, not earlier. But that's not what she's pissed off about, as far as I can tell. And now you know, and you can call when she's there, and it'll all be good. I think that she got upset because she thought you were doing it on purpose so you wouldn't have to talk to her. And I think she thought that because she's pissed off (which I talk about below).

And even, I think Mom is pissed off because she assumed that you won't hear what she has to say, and she thinks that you are doing certain things in a malicious manner. I think the best way to deal with that is to talk to her, I mean really talk to her, and explain bit by bit why what she thinks isn't true. She's worth it! And you're worth it! And your relationship is worth it. I don't want to see you guys go through several years of not talking, like she and I did. Although it turned out really well in the long run, I think there are better ways of strengthening a relationship.

And her big problems are that you don't have a job and that you haven't paid her back for the contact lenses, as far as I can tell. I believe that her reasons for getting pissed off is that she feels you're not getting a job because you don't like working, and you feel that you can just rely on Mich to do the work, and not have to be responsible. Her big concern is that you've grown up to be a man who is not responsible, who depends on others to pick up his slack, and who hasn't learned that he's the only one responsible for his actions and for taking care of himself.

Now, don't get mad! I'm just trying to get this across. Mom thinks that working=responsibility. She feels that you never planned on paying her back, and that you used her. Feeling used is a horrible feeling, I know. Alex used me from day one to the end. And when she feels used, she gets angry, and when she gets angry, her judgement is clouded (like most people), and she doesn't communicate why she's upset as well as she'd like to.

I understand that feeling, and I understand where she's coming from. I hope you do too! The best way to help her see that you're not what she thinks is to talk to her (or email her) and explain to her your side of things, that things have been so rough for you, that you're trying to get on your feet, that it's been taking a long time, and that you have every intention of paying her back.

I think that she feels this way because she's seen this in her brothers, in Dad, and in other men, and she worries that you are doing those same things as them. She wants the best for you. Like any child-parent relationship, what she thinks is best for you is different from what you think/know is best for you, because she has different ideas of what is important (believe me, I know! what with my tattoos, my love of alternative cultures, my search for happiness and not money, those sorts of things are difficult to explain to Mom, because she thinks other things are important. And that's ok, it happens to everyone, but we can all minimize our differences by at least talking about it, you know?)

Sometimes, the best way to let someone know that you're sincere about paying back debts (when you can't afford to pay them back soon) is to talk about it often - bring it up in a conversation, explain that things aren't going as well as you'd hoped, and that the debt is important to you and you haven't forgotten it, and that you WILL keep them informed about an eta.

This isn't something that she emailed you, but she and I talked about it - she feels bad (and so do I!) because for Christmas you didn't send a card. Neither one of us expected a present. We understand that you are poor, and that presents aren't as important as food. But, we both like feeling thought about and appreciated, and a card (even a home made one) sent at the right time makes a big difference. Maybe you didn't think about it this way, and maybe you thought it was best not to draw any attention to the fact that you couldn't send anything more, and that's ok! But maybe, in the future, you could remember how we felt this year, and you'll think to send us cards. That would be really nice, and it would keep our family feeling solidified.

Since I'm being honest - about the whole calling thing - I guess I do feel bad about that. I was thinking about it over the weekend, and when you would email me, earlier, I'd email you back, so excited that we were getting a dialogue going! But you never responded. I don't feel loved when you don't email me. Email is free, or almost free, I know. At least cheaper than phone calls. I have often felt that I put more effort into our relationship than you did. I enjoy talking with you. I enjoy emailing you. But I can't be the one putting all the work into it - it makes me feel like a dog looking for treats from it's master. And that upsets me a lot, so I stopped trying a long time ago. Do you know what I mean? You're my brother, but we've gotten more and more distant as time goes by, and that totally sucks. I miss you!

And while I'm being totally honest (please keep not being mad, understand that I'm trying to open up our relationship into something awesome), I'm still kinda upset about what happened before mom's birthday last year. I understand that you were going through a lot at that time - but nothing makes it ok to yell and swear at me, to threaten me with cancelling important plans, and to hang up on me! We did that sort of crap when we were teenagers, but I need us to have a more mature relationship than that now. I need us to be two adults who can tell each other what's going on in our lives, can ask for support, and can say "I'm upset right now, so I can't handle this" or "I don't like the way that happened, can we talk about it", you know? I need us to have a great open close relationship. I promise that I won't yell and scream at you, I won't swear at you, and I won't ever hang up on you. I mean, you're my brother, and we used to talk about practically everything in grade school and high school, and even when I was in university, remember? There's nothing wrong with that kind of closeness. You know I support you tons and tons in whatever you want to do. You know I won't say "this is the way things are traditionally done, so you need to do it that way". So please hear what I'm saying - that incident really freaked me out and upset me. It made me cry and think that you thought it was ok to try to hurt me, that you didn't want me to know what was going on in your life, but that you expected me to take flak because of it. Please hear what I'm saying, and please tell me that our relationship is going to move past that incident, and never have something like that happen again. I mean, we're OLD now! And we're past all the shit that happened when we were living at home. We don't have to deal with mom and dad being upset all the time and taking it out on us, we don't have to be children who take out their frustrations on each other because they aren't allowed to have any other outlets. We're bigger and better and more mature than that now. I know I am, I know how to do all these things, and I think you are too, but that it's hard for you and it's easy to fall into old patterns with me because they're familiar, you know? But they're not familiar with me any more. All they do is push me away.

I don't want to get pushed away, and I don't want you to be pushed away either. I want our relationship to be a hundred times better than it was back then. And I think that back then it was better than it is now. :(

This is a long email. The short of it is: I love you. I think that the thing with Mom can be fixed now that I told you what she meant to say, and when you talk to her and explain to her why she's wrong. I think that you and I need to work on our relationship, but I do love and support you.

What do you think about all this?

Love,
L

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

You handled that so well. You're so good at communicating what you're feeling and thinking, it's amazing. I read the note you left at Youmna's diary and I just wanted to say that, that really means a lot to me and I would also love to meet you. You're so awesome.

[(Anonymous)]

That was me btw. ~Janie :)