Tuesday, March 30, 2010

I turned 40. Though I have not communicated with them since I received the emails from my brother and father in July of '09, my parents sent me a sappy card for my 40th birthday (yes, they just had to put a shadow on the day), written like a eulogy, and they even got the date wrong. I kid you not. My mother wrote my brother's birth year, 1973, instead of my own. I also received two emails on Sunday from my mother about an ex-neighbor of more than 25 years ago (that we haven't spoken with in that long, either).

It just eats at me and eats at me. I have mental arguments with their irrationalities. I try to prove to them in my mind that their thinking is twisted and could, in no way, have happened the way that they are claiming. I address all of the hateful things that they have said/written and question their lack of apology and how they could pretend that it never happened. And then I have to stop and bottle it all back up, knowing that this conversation in real life would be nothing but frustrating, hurtful and unresolvable. Recapping: after the huge mess on Thanksgiving '08, I wrote an apology letter for my part in it in April '09. After I wrote my apology letter a year ago, I received letters back to back from both my father and brother three months later. Their letters proved my conspiracy theory that they were sitting around and trashing me, as well as corroborating their convoluted gaslighting stories.

I go back and read those hateful words to remind myself that I can't argue any of it. I will never, ever be able to have a healthy relationship with any of them because they truly believe what they have written about and to me. Why do I even want a relationship with them, then? Because I'm a mammal and it's in my genetic code to want to be part of your own family. To be honest, I actually begin to forget about them and release the stress that they cause... and then my mother sends a stupid email forward or I get a ridiculous birthday card, acting as if everything is just fine. A friend made a joke, "Apparently, they don't realize that you're not speaking to each other."