Family Plot
When I was feeding the birds this morning I grabbed the last four hummingbird feeders that were outside, dumped the remaining nectar and figured that was the end of it for the season. Well, I am sitting at my desk for less than five minutes and a hummingbird is outside the window, flying around the empty hook that once held a feeder. So I ran and made the fastest batch of nectar I ever made, stuck the hot pan in a sink of cold water to speed up the cool down of the liquid and got two feeders back outside.
I feel bad, because I hadn't seen any activity and figured they'd all departed. Hopefully this one sees the fresh nectar, if he's still around. Though it is possible he was just moving south and passing through. Perhaps remembering there were feeders here in the spring and last fall. I suppose I will just keep putting nectar out there until the first frost or something.
I was looking up info about the event last weekend and saw the lady had posted about 50 pics on her Facebook page, which I could not see because I don't have an account. On my old Mac though my dad's old account, which my mom occasionally still uses, was still signed in. I discovered this a long while back looking at something else on there. I had used his account in 2020 to find out info about Trump vehicle parades and stuff, and because the security is so lax on their site I guess, it's never logged me out or asked I sign back in.
Since I was on there I could not resist taking a peek at my sister's train wreck of an account. Endless posts about shelter dogs and attention-starved pleas for validation. I saw she posted about Corey Comperatore, the guy who was shot and killed during the Trump assassination attempt. In the post she says "A fellow firefighter..." when talking about him. Maybe I just read into it too much with her, but the statement was totally narcissistic. She is exploiting the death to get attention for herself by making sure to reference that *she* is also a "firefighter". Again, I could just be reading it that way because I see narcissism in everything she does, but literally everything she says and does is to get herself attention.
I also happened to see a post from her over Labor Day weekend about "her yearly tradition" of going to this one fall craft fair with my mom. Now, I had been going with my parents to this thing since the mid-2000s. My sister only started joining us in the 2010s. And not every year. I knew it was coming up, but I also knew with this drama that I did not think we (the Sparrow and I) were going. And it was obvious as it approached my mother was not mentioning it. But, I half assumed she wasn't going because she had a wedding that weekend. Yet it seems they had their little plans, and my mother being the spineless coward she is, decided to just not mention it at all.
It makes me wonder if that is how things will go with the upcoming holidays. They just won't be mentioned, there will be no conversation about it and the onus will be on me either to bring it up, or the fault on me for not. More of these family games I am so tired of. From the very beginning our family has done this, where things are just *not* talked about. Instead everyone stews and whispers behind everyone's back. It would have went this way after the Christmas disaster last year, had *I* not forced my mother to have a conversation with me about it. She stated when I first brought it up that she had "nothing" to say.
And this is the game.
Once again, I am the bad guy. If I ask why it was not brought up, my mother will put it on me and say *I* am the one not talking to my sister and *I* am the one who lives so far away. My mother sat there and witnessed what my sister did last Thanksgiving. Yet, she makes excuses for it. My sister had her gallbladder out before Christmas and that forgives all apparently. And *I* am the monster for not kissing her feet and begging her to tell me if she is okay after the surgery. My mother is terrified my sister will "curse her in her grave" if she does anything to piss Miss Piggy off, before her death or after the will is revealed. My sister has such a hold over my mother that capitulating to my sister's narcissism is more important than treating me with any level of respect.
I am so tired of this.
I am genuinely asking myself this morning, could I just cut ties with my mother? Could I just tell her I don't want a relationship with her if this is how it is going to be? It seems childish, but I admit to being very hurt by this. I don't know why. I pretty much knew this is how it would go as far as that fall festival thing went. I knew my mother was a spineless coward who would not broach the subject. And if I brought it up, she would turn it on me and say that all of this drama is my fault. My sister can do no wrong because she is "alone" and for some reason no concerns have ever been expressed about me being "alone" or a "victim", like my mother constantly paints my sister. And I do feel this has something to do with me being gay and some resentment my mother has fostered over it for years.
Better to have an entitled, self-involved, manipulative straight daughter than a fag for a son?
At this point I feel it is almost a certainty my sister has coerced my mother into making her executor of the estate. No doubt continuing to paint the image that the Sparrow and I are like my brother and his wife, and that it'd be safer for her to have my sister "taking care" of everything. I have no doubt when my mother dies I likely won't even know about it for days. Enough time will need to pass for my sister to be able to take all my mom's money, change the locks on her house. Hell, I could see my sister having the funeral and just telling everyone that I refused to come while not telling me at all.
Having to deal with all of this is just too much. But, what was the other option. To let my entitled sister get away with her behavior of the past twenty years? Sit there and say nothing while she goes on an unhinged tirade and gaslights me in front of a room of people? Let her just keep saying at every holiday that her life is held back because my mother is still alive, right to my mother's face? And my spineless mother putting up with it and not saying a word out of this ridiculous fear of her daughter cutting her off? Clearly there is no fear of me doing so on my mother's part.
I just think back to the past twenty years of me trying to be there for my parents every chance I could be. And it all has amounted to nothing now. All this worry I had about being a "good son" and all this guilt and struggle I went through feeling as if I as inadequate or a failure in their eyes. It was all pointless. For as much as I may have failed at some aspect of my role, they failed in theirs.
It only adds to the frustration that no communication can be had over all of this. She would never attempt to bring it up. If I do she either doesn't want to talk about it, will place the blame solely on me and/or she will just sit on the phone in silence or cry, making comments asking how "this could happen" to *her*. Why she "has to have all the screwed up children". Those kind of horrible comments I've heard since I was a teenager. I used to laugh about it, but they are horrible things to say to a kid.
I don't know what it is I am looking for in all of this. I know I want justice, in the case of my sister. I want her to pay some price for her behavior, but she won't. My mother for her part will protect her in any way she can. Enable her bad behaviors and shower her with cash so she faces no consequences for anything. I would like my mother to be able to understand the reality of what is happening, outside of the delusion my sister has pulled her into. Where only my sister is the victim, and anyone that challenges her or criticizes her is "the bad guy".
Is everything I've done the past twenty years just lost? Is it meaningless? All wiped away and forgotten for the glory of my sister? Because now my sister has helped her with a few vet visits with her oversized dog and helped her take a few pictures with her iPhone to send to the repair guy in the past 10 months... suddenly all that is the only thing that matters?
I don't care about my parents estate, except in that I do not feel my sister should just be handed the whole thing, or be allowed to steal it. My relationship with my mother is nothing but frustration and pain right now, but I am still in contact because I feel like it is the right thing to do. But every once in a while I wonder if that is the truth. Perhaps it is not the right thing to do. In the face of abusive and toxic behavior how can it be right to endure it? My whole life has been about enduring toxicity, putting up with things I never should have allowed. How is this different? It should make it even more serious that it is due to people I am related to.
There is no good end to any of this. And no option where I cannot be made to look like the one at fault. Why should I care? I have no relationships with any of my extended family. I've made attempts over the years via email, social media... most recently sending what I thought were several very nice, heartfelt Christmas cards after my cousin's father (my uncle) died to a few cousins and my mom's other sister. I received no responses. No mutual exchanges of cards. Nothing. So why bother caring? So we can talk at the next funeral?
I know the kind of person I am. I am flawed, but I have always tried to be a decent human being, I think. I tried to be "the good son" and make up for all these perceived "failures" I thought I was. But, there comes a time when a person needs to take a stand for themselves. That is part of the human experience. A time when a person says enough is enough, when it comes to dealing with certain people and their behavior. Sometimes those people are family, but it should not make a difference. A person should not sacrifice self-respect or self-worth to coddle to behaviors that are obviously bad, harmful, toxic etc.
But even in any justification for acting, there is the guilt of doing so. The guilt from a lifetime of programming. A lifetime of your parents telling you it is your duty to care for them and be there for them. How many people have had their growth stunted and their adulthoods robbed from them by this anchor of family tied around their neck. No choice I make can undo a lifetime of dysfunction. I cannot save any of them. I cannot change any of them. I can only change myself.
I feel bad, because I hadn't seen any activity and figured they'd all departed. Hopefully this one sees the fresh nectar, if he's still around. Though it is possible he was just moving south and passing through. Perhaps remembering there were feeders here in the spring and last fall. I suppose I will just keep putting nectar out there until the first frost or something.
I was looking up info about the event last weekend and saw the lady had posted about 50 pics on her Facebook page, which I could not see because I don't have an account. On my old Mac though my dad's old account, which my mom occasionally still uses, was still signed in. I discovered this a long while back looking at something else on there. I had used his account in 2020 to find out info about Trump vehicle parades and stuff, and because the security is so lax on their site I guess, it's never logged me out or asked I sign back in.
Since I was on there I could not resist taking a peek at my sister's train wreck of an account. Endless posts about shelter dogs and attention-starved pleas for validation. I saw she posted about Corey Comperatore, the guy who was shot and killed during the Trump assassination attempt. In the post she says "A fellow firefighter..." when talking about him. Maybe I just read into it too much with her, but the statement was totally narcissistic. She is exploiting the death to get attention for herself by making sure to reference that *she* is also a "firefighter". Again, I could just be reading it that way because I see narcissism in everything she does, but literally everything she says and does is to get herself attention.
I also happened to see a post from her over Labor Day weekend about "her yearly tradition" of going to this one fall craft fair with my mom. Now, I had been going with my parents to this thing since the mid-2000s. My sister only started joining us in the 2010s. And not every year. I knew it was coming up, but I also knew with this drama that I did not think we (the Sparrow and I) were going. And it was obvious as it approached my mother was not mentioning it. But, I half assumed she wasn't going because she had a wedding that weekend. Yet it seems they had their little plans, and my mother being the spineless coward she is, decided to just not mention it at all.
It makes me wonder if that is how things will go with the upcoming holidays. They just won't be mentioned, there will be no conversation about it and the onus will be on me either to bring it up, or the fault on me for not. More of these family games I am so tired of. From the very beginning our family has done this, where things are just *not* talked about. Instead everyone stews and whispers behind everyone's back. It would have went this way after the Christmas disaster last year, had *I* not forced my mother to have a conversation with me about it. She stated when I first brought it up that she had "nothing" to say.
And this is the game.
Once again, I am the bad guy. If I ask why it was not brought up, my mother will put it on me and say *I* am the one not talking to my sister and *I* am the one who lives so far away. My mother sat there and witnessed what my sister did last Thanksgiving. Yet, she makes excuses for it. My sister had her gallbladder out before Christmas and that forgives all apparently. And *I* am the monster for not kissing her feet and begging her to tell me if she is okay after the surgery. My mother is terrified my sister will "curse her in her grave" if she does anything to piss Miss Piggy off, before her death or after the will is revealed. My sister has such a hold over my mother that capitulating to my sister's narcissism is more important than treating me with any level of respect.
I am so tired of this.
I am genuinely asking myself this morning, could I just cut ties with my mother? Could I just tell her I don't want a relationship with her if this is how it is going to be? It seems childish, but I admit to being very hurt by this. I don't know why. I pretty much knew this is how it would go as far as that fall festival thing went. I knew my mother was a spineless coward who would not broach the subject. And if I brought it up, she would turn it on me and say that all of this drama is my fault. My sister can do no wrong because she is "alone" and for some reason no concerns have ever been expressed about me being "alone" or a "victim", like my mother constantly paints my sister. And I do feel this has something to do with me being gay and some resentment my mother has fostered over it for years.
Better to have an entitled, self-involved, manipulative straight daughter than a fag for a son?
At this point I feel it is almost a certainty my sister has coerced my mother into making her executor of the estate. No doubt continuing to paint the image that the Sparrow and I are like my brother and his wife, and that it'd be safer for her to have my sister "taking care" of everything. I have no doubt when my mother dies I likely won't even know about it for days. Enough time will need to pass for my sister to be able to take all my mom's money, change the locks on her house. Hell, I could see my sister having the funeral and just telling everyone that I refused to come while not telling me at all.
Having to deal with all of this is just too much. But, what was the other option. To let my entitled sister get away with her behavior of the past twenty years? Sit there and say nothing while she goes on an unhinged tirade and gaslights me in front of a room of people? Let her just keep saying at every holiday that her life is held back because my mother is still alive, right to my mother's face? And my spineless mother putting up with it and not saying a word out of this ridiculous fear of her daughter cutting her off? Clearly there is no fear of me doing so on my mother's part.
I just think back to the past twenty years of me trying to be there for my parents every chance I could be. And it all has amounted to nothing now. All this worry I had about being a "good son" and all this guilt and struggle I went through feeling as if I as inadequate or a failure in their eyes. It was all pointless. For as much as I may have failed at some aspect of my role, they failed in theirs.
It only adds to the frustration that no communication can be had over all of this. She would never attempt to bring it up. If I do she either doesn't want to talk about it, will place the blame solely on me and/or she will just sit on the phone in silence or cry, making comments asking how "this could happen" to *her*. Why she "has to have all the screwed up children". Those kind of horrible comments I've heard since I was a teenager. I used to laugh about it, but they are horrible things to say to a kid.
I don't know what it is I am looking for in all of this. I know I want justice, in the case of my sister. I want her to pay some price for her behavior, but she won't. My mother for her part will protect her in any way she can. Enable her bad behaviors and shower her with cash so she faces no consequences for anything. I would like my mother to be able to understand the reality of what is happening, outside of the delusion my sister has pulled her into. Where only my sister is the victim, and anyone that challenges her or criticizes her is "the bad guy".
Is everything I've done the past twenty years just lost? Is it meaningless? All wiped away and forgotten for the glory of my sister? Because now my sister has helped her with a few vet visits with her oversized dog and helped her take a few pictures with her iPhone to send to the repair guy in the past 10 months... suddenly all that is the only thing that matters?
I don't care about my parents estate, except in that I do not feel my sister should just be handed the whole thing, or be allowed to steal it. My relationship with my mother is nothing but frustration and pain right now, but I am still in contact because I feel like it is the right thing to do. But every once in a while I wonder if that is the truth. Perhaps it is not the right thing to do. In the face of abusive and toxic behavior how can it be right to endure it? My whole life has been about enduring toxicity, putting up with things I never should have allowed. How is this different? It should make it even more serious that it is due to people I am related to.
There is no good end to any of this. And no option where I cannot be made to look like the one at fault. Why should I care? I have no relationships with any of my extended family. I've made attempts over the years via email, social media... most recently sending what I thought were several very nice, heartfelt Christmas cards after my cousin's father (my uncle) died to a few cousins and my mom's other sister. I received no responses. No mutual exchanges of cards. Nothing. So why bother caring? So we can talk at the next funeral?
I know the kind of person I am. I am flawed, but I have always tried to be a decent human being, I think. I tried to be "the good son" and make up for all these perceived "failures" I thought I was. But, there comes a time when a person needs to take a stand for themselves. That is part of the human experience. A time when a person says enough is enough, when it comes to dealing with certain people and their behavior. Sometimes those people are family, but it should not make a difference. A person should not sacrifice self-respect or self-worth to coddle to behaviors that are obviously bad, harmful, toxic etc.
But even in any justification for acting, there is the guilt of doing so. The guilt from a lifetime of programming. A lifetime of your parents telling you it is your duty to care for them and be there for them. How many people have had their growth stunted and their adulthoods robbed from them by this anchor of family tied around their neck. No choice I make can undo a lifetime of dysfunction. I cannot save any of them. I cannot change any of them. I can only change myself.