Tag: estrangement

Auld Lang Syne

I think of what I might say to my friend from long, long ago.

When I see her again.

I think of what it will take to get to where she is now. Winging my way back to visit someone I have not spoken with in person for … ever.

The journey-to-be plays out in my head: first getting to the airport, arriving, navigating the checkin counter, the security line, the waiting lounge, the flight to her current there, arriving.

She’ll order a soda with lemon. I’ll have a tonic water with lemon, too. We both turned our backs on mead and the grape some time ago.

I imagine we will gently jog down memory lane.

Trying to look at life and our life as it was then through the microscope of hindsight to recall – inaccurately – what once was and will never come again.

I struggle to remember what it was that tore us asunder all those years ago. What words did I say? How did I act? I writhe internally with discomfort as I recall all the possible friendship-fracturing infractions. I was a troubled child.

Why did she matter so damned much? What was it that created such an impassable gulf between us until now, all those years ago, to arrive back at where we are now: a place of truce and reconciliation?

Age, maybe. Curiosity likely, too. Two friends who knew each other when they were young nobodies. Perhaps we want to test each other and ourselves to see if one or the other of us remembers anything from back then in exactly the same way. Unlikely.

She became a superstar. Her god given talents fully explored in this lifetime and her contributions globally recognized and lauded. It is fair to say, our paths diverged.

Yet, here we are making a conscious choice to reconnect. And to what end, I wonder? For my part, I loved her much. Banishment from her life ate away at my soul for my whole adult life.

So maybe, our reunion is simply that. To be able to tell her how much I missed her. How much less my life was without her to share it as we once had without even touching base occasionally. To give simple thanks for the gift of grace and forgiveness she is giving me for sins which neither of us remembers now with any clarity.

To sit at her fire and hoist a mug again. It truly is only that I seek. To let her know how much she meant to me and how affecting the loss of her presence was. And to tell her how happy I am to see her. One more time.

Up we’ll both stand in whatever social venue we mutually selected and agreed upon to share this ritual of reunion. We’ll hug likely, and share pleasantries and reaffirm that yes, there once was something of substance that mattered between us as friends.

She’ll turn and leave to go back to her there. I’ll turn and leave and head back to my temporary lodgings and start planning the steps needed to eventually fly home.

After that meeting, I expect I will never meet with her in person again. We will leave each other along the way as we once did so many years ago. But we’ll leave each other this time … differently.

Imploding

I both love and hate confrontation.

I love it because I am standing up for myself.

I hate it because it makes me feel uncomfortable things I don’t normally feel and don’t want to feel. It is an area of life in which I require considerably more finessing.

I am accustomed to deceit and trickery in social relations, and most frequently in family relations. Whether members of my family practiced deceit and trickery deliberately is almost beside the point. I remember the sickening sloshing about of unwelcome emotions in me as I stumbled upon one sad realization after another.

In many confrontations, I always hold out hope that I am about to discover someone made an “honest mistake.” For this mistake, they would rush in rapidly to own up and correct it. That’s funny, not funny.

If the transgressor’s intention was benign, they would have thought through and been aware of how their actions were going to hurt and undermine you. If their intentions were honorable and honest, they would not have let it happen in the first place.

When my father died, I repeatedly encountered this. My youngest sister was the sole executor. She had a “fiduciary” duty to treat her sisters – the two other beneficiaries – with an even hand. I knew what was going to happen from the minute I heard that Dad chose her as his representative.

She had treated me with disdain and disrespect for the previous 30 years. She hid this fact from my father. When he asked about our relationship, she lied to him and presented us as “best buds.” Her lying and deceit didn’t end there.

As the estate inexorably made its way through the legal system in a protracted start-stop process over the next 13 years, my sister made sure she profited handily from the arrangement. She loaned herself money from the estate while denying the same privilege to my sister and me.

She seconded all of my father’s personal effects without offering to share or allow access to select favored items for ourselves. Not even items that we had given Dad as gifts. She lied blithely to the estate attorney, the judges, and to me.

Any of my attempts at asking for parity or “fair dealing” were treated like so much dust and air. Even the most inconsequential of items – Dad’s old computer or special furnishings like a wooden coat rack – were withheld in the same manner as Aesop’s fable about the dog in the manger who hoarded hay he couldn’t eat.

In campaigning to become Dad’s executor in the years leading up to his death, she presented him with a special book as a Christmas gift: You Can’t Take It With You. It carefully detailed all of the horrors that could ensue without a proper estate plan and the “right” representative in place. Perhaps I see that more cynically than others might.

As it turned out, she disappeared on a Caribbean vacation in the days leading up to his death. She could not be reached by anyone for four days after he died. She swears she put her contact numbers on a Post-It note on her computer screen. It seems she forgot to tell anyone.

She left my father’s law books in a place where they went moldy and had to be trashed. She put all of his office furniture into a dumpster refusing all pleas from me to hold them. The buyers of the business building said they would happily have held on to those items for me “had they but known.” Having lost their parents themselves, they knew the sentimental value of the items my sister got rid of.

There were many confrontations in the aftermath of my father’s death. Mostly useless. The courts and society treat power with the same even hand. In spite of the evidence, no one would call out my sister for her shifty management of Dad’s funds and property.

I did learn one thing from that sad situation. In the end, Dad’s things didn’t really matter all that much. I grieved them and got over it. Less clutter to deal with.

It was the deeper wounds of treachery, deceit, and cruelty that hurt and caused the most longlasting damage. Mostly, the dissolution of any future facade of family. Permanent estrangement from both sisters was the final consequence. That is not said with bitterness but sadness. It was a preventable tragedy.

I had to walk away for my own self-protection and the preservation of my mental health. When I hear the stories of pettiness and fighting that still goes on among them, I sigh with relief. I no longer want to live or choose to live like that. Hurt people hurt people they say.

I also walked away with certainty about one thing. Whatever else underpinned the cruelty, deceitfulness, envy, and greed in the family situation, it was not solely my fault as my youngest sister was desperate to believe.

It is sad when families learn – like the stranded crew on Apollo 13 who struggled to maintain their cool in a life threatening situation – that after any degree of the fighting and conflict, we end up back in the same place. It is well to remember that in the aftermath of such conflict, our relationships might not make it intact.

Comes A Time

If I’ve learned one thing in my life, it is that I have a choice about who is admitted to my inner circle. I like to be on good terms with as many people as possible. I make that choice for me and for my happiness.

I used to be a world-class negative Nelly. There were few positive and joyous occasions that I couldn’t turn into misery. My “critical eye” as I called it, could see the downside of any situation, and filter out the joy to its’ true and dark core. What a sad little girl I was.

The only difference between then and now is that I see it was a choice. I was a troubled young adult. I tried to convince myself that my negativity and questionable behaviors were somehow mitigated and counter-balanced by the strengths I brought to the table.

As I fought to grow stronger and healthier and started to abandon habits and behaviors that did not serve me, my life experiences grew more positive. Eventually, I was able to appreciate the positivity in any situation. I was also able to more clearly see those who were still afflicted by negativity like I once was.

When you discover a negative Nelly within your own inner circle, it is disappointing. I learned on my journey to let go of blame. I forgave people because not forgiving them was hurting me more than it was hurting them. I believe the saying is: “Resentment is like taking poison and hoping your enemies get sick.”

Sure I have been badly hurt. Often. Many things happened in my life that I didn’t want to happen and wouldn’t wish on others. But one day I realized it was my choice whether I wanted to live in bitterness for the rest of my life. The answer was and is a hard no.

I realized how much comfort I took from the certainty I had about others who harmed me. I was right and they were wrong. They hurt me and so I had every reason to treat them with disdain and disrespect. The irony was the only person I ended up hurting most with my crummy behavior and attitude was myself.

As I pushed forward in healing, I started to abandon people. They held fast to the truth of their own narrative. There was nothing I could say or do or point out to them that would change their minds. Their minds were made up about what life was, how far they could go in it, and their opinion of me.

I had to let go. I am willfully estranged from my two sisters and their families. There are twinges of regret for some happy memories that we shared a long, long time ago. But those memories are too few and the narrative they hold on to is too unhealthy for me. I walked away.

I rarely think of them, in fact. I am on the brink of another painful estrangement with a family member. This one is even closer and harder to walk away from. I have learned that you can’t push a string. People are who they are who they are. If their position is utterly contrary to my well-being and they mistreat me without apology and accountability, I have no choice.

I find it odd how much license and power many people give to family to mistreat them. There is behavior that would have us turn on our heel, walk out and never again deal with a stranger who did the same thing to us. Yet in families, there is a tendency to tolerate abusive behavior. The forgiveness of “those who trespass against us” is one thing. Tolerance of chronic toxic behavior is self-destruction.

Many of the most powerful lessons I learned around this were from Al-Anon. When you are dealing with an addict, you are dealing with someone who is lost in their own illness. You are not dealing with a fully functioning human being. Similarly, when you are dealing with a toxic personality who blames and mistreats you for all of their ills, you are in a toxic and no-win situation.

It is a positive, if sad, day when you realize there are no words nor actions nor gifts nor any amount of money that will correct the situation. You do what you can until you can’t do anything any longer.

At some point, the weight and imbalance of a one-way relationship buckles and you break. More accurately, something breaks inside of you. What you once felt for that person and what once was in your relationship is over.

Anyone who has lived through any major relationship breakup – maybe several – will recognize the pattern of breaking down and growing apart and the pain that goes with it.

There was a saying in my family. I have only just started to realize the truth of it. “When Christmas is over, it is time to take down the tree.” There is a point at which hoping and loving and trying and wishing for someone to be other than who they are simply doesn’t work anymore. You accept what is.

Maybe that person will one day come around, treat you better, and apologize for their transgressions. Maybe not. That “point of departure” when you realize the relationship you have no longer feeds you is a sad day but also a liberating one.

It frees you from feeding a relationship that no longer serves you. It frees you from holding on to a fantasy of how things might be. And it lets you get on with the business of living your own life.

Which is, ultimately, all that any of us can do and be responsible for.

Dear Abby

From the Facebook Wisdom of Life Community

This query from an overwhelmed Mom popped up on this Facebook group I belong to. My answer to this writer’s call for help generated positive feedback on that site. I thought it might be worth sharing. (The inquiry is anonymous so I am fairly sure I haven’t breached any ethical boundaries.)

Not so long ago, I could have written a similarly themed post. On the other side of those dark days now, I wanted to share insights with her that helped me. Healing deep emotional damage is a marathon, not a sprint.

In my answer, I borrow shamelessly from the advice column stylings of Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren. They were sisters who doled out daily nuggets of hope in “advice” columns published back in the middle to late 20th century in newspapers across North America.

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Writer: I am suffering from severe treatment-resistant depression and anxiety. I am in the middle of tapering off Valium and having an extremely hard time getting off of it. I’m in a loveless relationship for 20 years with four kids. I have no job or career and nothing to call my own except for being a mom. I’m scared, lost, and have no support system. My dad died in September and I was disowned by my mom and family so I only have one sister left. I’ve spent my life caring for others and not being cared for myself. I’m in a deep dark hole with no way out. Nowhere to turn. Can’t sleep. Can barely function. And very moody. My only time to myself is when the kids are in school but soon they will be home all summer and I don’t think I can handle it with the way I feel. I just need someone to love and support me. And I don’t have that. How do I navigate my way through this?

Answer from Margot Brewer: I have been where you are (but with two kids). Identifying your misery is a healthy start. That may sound contradictory but it isn’t. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. You have to start learning to love yourself and truly believe you are worthy of love. You have lived without love in your marriage for a long time. When you have a long history of want, it is hard to conceive of another way of being. You have a lot of healing to do. Losing your Dad and your family are massive losses that need to be acknowledged and grieved. I lived through that, including the estrangement from the family. Be ever so gentle and compassionate with yourself. Look around your life and decide what you can and cannot control. Find something in your world every day to be grateful for. Make a gratitude jar. This may seem flaky. I get that. Do it anyway. And start taking extra special care of yourself every day. Carve out space in your downtime to do things that make you happy. Music, books, nature, gardening. Anything that gives you even slivers of joy and gets you outside yourself. It is a long road to get out from underneath the weight of your life but you can by holding on to the belief it can change. I still take some medication for occasional relief but it is only part of my self-care routine, not all of it. Thank you for your post. I hope you find the strength and belief in yourself to feel better. It may take a while but the journey is worth it. Take good care of yourself.