Boring Update

I realize it’s been almost two months since I’ve shared anything here and I’m sure it’s been lonely without my tales of childhood traumas. For those I have left unentertained, I apologize. With both of us working full time and wrangling a constantly growing Tiny Human free time to write or read or shower is at a premium and I don’t always have the energy or mental capacity to put fingers to keys and make the magic happen. 

I do have a couple of pieces in the hopper that should be interesting and hope to have those done and posted in the next couple weeks. 

Will it be everyone’s favorite thing? Probably not. 

Will it be scandalous? Also no. 

There will be more weird stories from my childhood coming soon enough. 

Auntagonist

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. 

Kittens in the Cradle

The 1974 classic Cat’s In The Cradle originally by Harry Chapin tells the story of a hard working father who is too busy for to spend time with his child while he’s growing up until he retires and wants to spend time with his son only to get the same answer.

“Sorry, too busy right now. Maybe someday.”

My mother has not seen her only grandchild in almost three years. The last time she saw her she was six weeks old and she’ll be three in a couple months.

That’s the current situation is in any conversation with my mother about whether she has any intention of coming to visit her only grandchild before she graduates kindergarten. At the moment it looks like *shakes Magic 8 Ball* don’t count on it. She is still unvaccinated, which is enough of an issue for me on its own, but more importantly she shows no interest in even wanting to try to visit and it’s very disappointing and it makes me sad for my daughter. 

When or if my mother ever sees her only grandchild again I have no idea how my daughter will react. Seeing the person she occasionally talks to on FaceTime may be underwhelming and she’ll be ready to move on after about 10 minutes. 

I wonder if my mother used up all her grandma energy on my cousin’s kids because it increasingly feels that way. 

The more time that passes the harder it is to care and I can sense that her only grandchild is headed the same direction. When you’re only the equivalent of a character on FaceTime every now and then you are more of an episode of some show that happens to be on. I wrote about this previously in What’s In A Name about how my paternal grandparents barely saw me growing up and it feels eerily similar to my mother’s relationship with her only grandchild. 

My Tiny Human knows she is loved and cared for and there are so many people who love and want to see her in person and some do and some are making plans to try and make that happen safely and I’m thrilled for that. I just wish my mother showed any level of interest beyond a half-hearted response that sounds like verbal hand wringing when I mention it. 

At this point I’m not mad, just disappointed. 

Ring My Bell

Picture it: Christmas break, probably 1994 maybe ‘95.

It all started innocently enough. My mother’s youngest sister and her husband who were pastors in the Salvation Army and were in Kansas City at the time and I was in college a couple hours south in Missouri. As most anyone who goes near any retail or downtown area between Thanksgiving and Christmas knows, the Salvation Army posts people with handbells and buckets to collect money. My mother’s youngest sister and her husband were in charge of that. 

The words “It seemed like a good idea at the time” have bitten me in the ass so many times I’m surprised I have any ass left. But I digress. 

When the idea of me being a bell ringer for about a week before flying home to Chicago was initially proposed I was told that I would be inside a fancy mall so I should pack nice clothes to make a good impression on the shoppers whose ears I would be accosting with my handbell. However, when I got there I was told that for some reason I would be outside in the elements. 

I had not packed for that. 

I did it one day and nearly got frostbite and no that is not hyperbolic. Kansas City can get hella cold in the winter. 

I called my mother to update her on the situation and got no support. Instead I got a double whammy of guilt and shame with some religious guilt thrown in for good measure. Another example of my mother taking the other side and one of many times her youngest sister and her husband fucked me over. 

NOTE: Karma has come around for them, probably more than once if I had to guess so it all evens out in the end. 

Back to the story: They begrudgingly allowed me to not freeze as long as I did other physical labor. The next few days were spent painting various rooms of their house. They weren’t home during the day and it was before I started smoking (a bad habit I picked up at bible college, go figure) so the days I had left were bearable. 

I was only there one weekend and was graciously allowed to stay home from church so I could keep working on the projects I had left before heading to Chicago. They had left for church with their kids so I waited until I was sure they were gone to go upstairs to grab coffee and some sort of breakfast. I was staying in the guest room which was in the finished basement with a half bath. That will be relevant in a moment. 

I got to the top of the stairs and the door standing between me and coffee was locked. 

They fucking locked me in the fucking basement. 

I was furious but trapped so I decided to write about it in whatever journal I was using at the time and then go back to sleep since there was nothing else to do. 

They got home from church a few hours later and claimed it was a force of habit to lock the basement door before they left but I call bullshit on that. I think they didn’t like me (and it’s probably still the same) and did some harmless micro aggression that would be nothing more than an inconvenience. Now you see why the half bath in the basement was important. 

Another call to my mother and the same thing. It was somehow my fault. No matter what happened it was ultimately my fault. I made the same mistake of doing work for them over Christmas break a year or two later. That was the last time. 

I’ve seen them a couple times over the last ten years or so and not much more than a hello and “I’m fine, thanks” and that’s probably all it will ever be. I have no reason to see or speak to them. Especially now. 

None of them are vaccinated and these are the people my unvaccinated mother chooses to live near and spend her time with. There’s some weird beholden-ness with them too where she’s spending her time taking care of her youngest sister’s grandson and hasn’t seen her only grandchild in almost three years and has no plans to. 

People make choices and have to live with the consequences of their choices. 

I choose to stay away from people with a track record of fucking me over and then trying to gaslight me into thinking it’s somehow my fault. 

For the mental and physical health and well-being of my own family I am making choices too and my choices do not include allowing actively toxic people into my life or my family. 

This has been a portion of my Festivus Airing of Grievances.