For a long as I can remember I have never had a good or normal relationship with my mother’s Middle Sister.
Even though I didn’t have the language for it and couldn’t exactly put my tiny finger on it at the time there was a competition for attention between me and Middle Sister for my mother’s attention. Nothing close to a normal aunt/nephew relationship. And since my mother has always been the same she never said or did anything in my defense or on my behalf.
In recent years, Middle Sister has essentially become desocialized more often acting feral than behaving within societal norms. Not in the fun way like an eccentric artist, musician, or writer, but more like the type of person that you screen their calls and pretend to look busy if you see them approaching.
In the last 20 years I have only been able to spend time with my mother without Middle Sister being involved a handful of times and I had to pay out of pocket for her travel to come visit me. Since her only grandchild has been born it has been like pulling teeth to get my mother to spend time with her and I have given up asking. I suspect Middle Sister is behind this too with her strange need for attention from my mother. I’m not sure how but I have a legitimate suspicion considering history. Recently, I asked my mother, in no uncertain terms, why she is so beholden to Middle Sister. Did something happen? Is there a blood oath? Because the sibling dynamic between them is so far from normal you can’t even see normal from there.
At some point, probably after my maternal grandfather died, Middle Sister took the mantle of being the family bully. She will scream and yell until she gets her way even if it makes no sense or is problematic for anyone else. I have a whole other post coming up about how I spent my last week in Chicago in 2016 as a direct result of her behavior and lack of control. There are many, many, many instances that I remember when she was awful to me and her behavior went unchallenged regardless of how it affected me.
One incident that stands out as part of the modern era bullshit she has pulled on me happened in 2008 and it was hella petty and ridiculous for a grown woman to act the way she did.
I did one year of a Ph.D. program in English at a mid-major university and after one year I knew that the program and professional academic life was not for me. The plan was I was going to spend a week in Chicago before moving on to the next adventure. A friend had asked me to come work with his church on the east coast and it seemed like a good idea at the time. It was not a good idea.
I was at the Tulsa airport and was short of funds for the overweight bag fee. I called my mother and asked her to deposit $100 into my account which was a Chicago based bank with no nearby branches. She agreed and after paying the highway robbery baggage fee I was headed to the gate ready to put the last year behind me.
My flight landed mid-afternoon. I asked my mother if we could go to the ATM the next day since it had already been a long day, I was tired, and emotionally exhausted. All I wanted to do was take a shower, have a snack, and watch LOST. I thought everything was fine and we’d run the errand the next day and didn’t think any more of it.
After literally laying on the couch in front of the TV all night Middle Sister decides 20 minutes before it was time for the ONE THING I said I wanted to do that day and throw a holy fucking fit about how I needed to go to the ATM immediately and she never agreed to the next day and again my mother sat there with her head in her hands and said nothing. The fact that it was almost 9pm and no banks were open so nothing could be done with the cash until the next day is a great example of how she throws a fit and yells about things that truly don’t matter just to inconvenience and fuck with me.
Missing a TV show seems minor, and it is, the issue was and always has been Middle Sister going out of her way to be awful to me which has no just been inconveniences but has also cost me more money than I would have spent otherwise.
There are more examples and stories of bullshit and shenanigans to be a miniseries or at least a really fucked up memoir and there will probably be an Auntagonist Part 2 at some point because why not. One weird thing is that as awful as she was to me, she has not been to my cousins even going to far as to buy them cartons of cigarettes when they were underage so they wouldn’t get in trouble again. Gotta love those pastor’s kids, right?
There has never been and never will be anything resembling a normal aunt/nephew or familial relationship between me and Middle Sister and it doesn’t bother me at all. What does bother me is the undeniable hold over and control of my mother’s behavior and there’s part of me that wonders if the relationship between my mother and Middle Sister is responsible for my mother’s lack of relationship with her only grandchild. Considering everything that Middle Sister has done to sabotage and generally fuck with me during my life nothing would surprise me. She is truly that miserable and awful.