Five Emails

Less than a month ago I said a few words about my oldest sister who in the course of one phone call disowned me completely and swore never to speak to me again. At the time I observed that this was not a new occurrence and I fully anticipated that at some point I would hear from her again.

Because I always do.

She tends to pop up in my life with all the persistence and regularity of those 'Absolutely Last Chance to Renew' notices I get in the mail from various magazines.

My sister popped up this afternoon.

I was taking a moment to check home email from work and there they were: A string of five emails, sent yesterday within a half hour of each other.

Email Number One was pleasant enough but not what you'd expect from someone who had disowned you. She loved me, she wanted to know how I was.

Email Number Two was still pleasant but slightly less so. Perhaps I hadn't responded to Email Number One because I didn't love her quite as much as she loved me.

Email Number Three took the gloves off. Short and pointed, it let me know I was selfish, self-centered, and had been since birth.

Email Number Four reminded me again that I was selfish, thoughtless, and moreover not even a nice person but she would always love me regardless and always had. If I didn't recognize what a good friend she was to me, I was just a total (all caps for emphasis) fool.

Email Number Five invited me to to drop dead and hinted not so subtly that my parents had always loved her best, anyway.

I scrolled through to Email Number One and replied that it was good to hear from her. All was well with me and I hoped she was enjoying a nice east coast spring.

I was never so happy to return to work email. Clients who want me to write menus and stage four hundred people in a room with a max capacity of seventy-five are issues that make sense to me.

Deciphering a Drama Queen is not.

Oddly enough, I've discovered I'm not alone in this familial quandary, as there seems to be at least one person in every family who remains addicted to their own self-created turmoil. Diane makes me feel much better by sharing tales of her own sister's inter-family grudges and laments of mistreatment. Lainie has a brother who is only on speaking terms with the family two weeks pre and post every holiday or event that involves the receipt of gifts or the possibility of a gratuitous meal.

My sister's behavior baffles me but doesn't necessarily bother me and what dawned on me today as I realized I felt no inclination whatsoever to respond to any but Email Number One is that you come to a certain point in life where you've done all you can for people and just because they're family doesn't obligate you to give them much of your energy.

I feel sad for my sister.

But not so sad that it's going to carry over into my life.

It's a wonderful thing to frankly be too busy to bog down in the ridiculous.

As previously observed, there will always be a part of me that believes my sister truly was left on my parent's doorstep in 1962 and accidentally brought inside with that day's dairy delivery, but I know better. We're related. We even look alike to a certain extent (give or take five bra sizes. I like to say my brain is larger and thus compensates for where I was otherwise shorted). I've got some great memories of growing up with her, everything from playing Barbies for hours on end to having her show me how to apply eye make-up in the seventh grade (Dad just as quickly showed me how to un-apply it when I turned up at the dinner table looking like a sad cross between Phyllis Diller and Rocky Raccoon). My big sister was my guardian angel when I started high school. Just as she had always been. She looked out for me and there truly was a time we were the best of friends.

I'm not sure when that changed but choose not to dwell on it. People grow up and people grow apart and this is true whether you have the same parents or not.

I have a feeling I'm officially disowned again but to be honest, I'd like for her to read my response to Email Number One and somehow forget she sent the other four. They weren't very pleasant to receive so I can only imagine how unhappy they were to send.

That, I don't wish on her.

What can I say, she's still my sister.