Family matters - Getting the story straight

I have been working on my story trying to piece together a timeline of the events of my childhood where things made sense to me.  This week I was talking to my sister about that time in our lives and she added some interesting additions. This is the first time we have ever talked about my mother's death or really anything about our past together.

It was one of her late night calls and I ask her about when mama got sick. I had always heard that she was sick for two and half years but she said three and a half years. She told me that the doctors said they caught the cancer early and removed it all. It was colon cancer in the early 70's and we believed the doctors. She had a year of good health until it came back with a vengeance a year later. She also said she was with my mother when she got that news and she shrieked. This fact is disturbing my mother never showed her emotions. 

This change in my own timeline explains a lot of confusion I had about other events. I thought I was almost nine when she got sick instead of eight. Our trips in the summer and a trip to south Georgia just before her diagnoses didn't fit quite right. On that trip we all ate a ton of pecans and she got deathly sick and my Grandmother said it was because the pecans were green. Later I thought pecans gave you cancer.

It is so strange that we have never talked about this. I have tried over the years but I think she was in survival mode in her own life. Like me she compartmentalizes to survive and for the first time we are both at a point in our lives where we not just surviving. Her kids are grown and learning to survive on their own and she is accepting it. She has some time to look at the past and talk things through with me. 

I am four years younger and she has mostly dismissed me as her kid sister. She was older and wiser plus didn't want to hear how I was treated by our father and ultimately banished by choice from the family.  She had a rift too but decided to return so her own kids would have that extended family. I can respect that and I did try once to mend my own rift but doing this set me back years in my own recovery. 

I went back for my wedding after four years thinking I was adult and could deal with the indifference they had for me. My stepmother was just as angry and vindictive as ever and my father the most passive person on the planet did nothing. Today in my sister's eyes he was a god an all knowing wise man that was pleasant and loving. I loved him too but to me standing by silently while others are mistreated makes you just as guilty as the person doing the mistreating.

My sister spent the years of my mother's sickness hiding out in books. It was how she coped with the real life tragedy she was experiencing. Because of our faith we weren't allowed to even speak of the cancer winning and I am sure she knew better than me that it would end badly for us all. One of my mother's best friends died around the same time as her diagnosis so we knew what could happen. 

I was young enough to believe that God was going to heal her because Daddy told me he would.  I stayed busy and out of the way as much as possible. I wasn't close with my mother because I was a "willful child"and during that time it seemed people were happier when I was not around. I learned to entertain myself and keep my mouth shut. This was and is my coping strategy today. 

It is good to test the memories I have created in my mind over the years.  Working on the real timeline I have noticed that a lot things happened closer together than I remembered. It has also helped me to be more compassionate towards myself and others in my story. I was 21 and very naive when I returned home for my wedding. I wanted reconciliation  and a sense of family.  My sister said she tried to talk me out of having a wedding there but I thought it would heal something broken.

The wedding is really the only mistake in my life and I have made plenty that I wish I could undo. I was still a girl wanting her daddy back. When I was little we did everything together and when my parents were in separate cars I rode with Daddy and my sister rode with Mama. He was wildly patient with me and didn't seem to mind my millions of questions.  

Writing about my past is healing me in places that I didn't know needed healing. It is good to face it one last time and a bonus to get my sister in on it. 

Flow - Distraction - Multi Tasking - Compartmentalizing

I have been back from my trip for a week.  It turned out to be a great healing trip for me and I feel freer than I ever have.  Only one call from work which in itself was a miracle.  Last week was quite drama filled but I was rested and not affected by the normal parts of my job.

When you are designing and bringing many people together to create the customers vision it is like running a department where none of the people actually work for you.  I try to be clear and straight forward with how things work but sometimes people aren't engaged.  Both customers and contractors want things to move quickly and rush through the planning process and when something is not like they imagined it was going to be they are upset.

It doesn't matter how many times I repeat it or show them it is like they are too busy at that moment to listen or pay attention.  Not everyone is like that and I can usually tell who will come back to me and plead innocence and expect a miracle.  Luckily I know that I have done my part to insure that everyone is on the same page.  I can't make someone listen that is lost in their own personal version of life so I just try to get through it as peacefully as possible.

I use to think I was always the person that did something wrong. The first call I got last Monday was " You have made a serious mistake on this job."  The old me would immediately think I am so stupid I messed this up.  Now before I have that thought I get more details and I trust myself.  The doubt comes because once I complete a task and move on to something else I file it away.  When I am working on something I give it 100% and shut out other distractions so I don't make mistakes. Then I move on and when a question comes up it takes time for the details to come back to me.

I think they call this compartmentalizing and it really works.  Today we pride ourselves in multi - tasking but all that means is no one or task is getting 100%.  Everything is getting sloppy seconds.  You can't take messages on your watch phone while listening to details of a month long project and not expect to miss a critical detail.  "Hey - You are spending a lot of money - Pay attention."

People shouldn't say "I have lost my mind"  they should say " I am lost in my mind".  I cover myself at work with lots of pictures this seems to waken the other half of the brain. Even though I am complaining here this isn't a regular problem for me but I wish that people were less scattered.

It isn't healthy to live in such a high stress environment created by our own behaviors.  In the past when my phone pinged I felt like was one of those mice in the test maze that was shocked every time the bell rang.  I always think about when you actually go to a store and stand in line waiting and the phone rings and the clerk takes the call and writes down that persons order or answers a long question. It seems you are not as important as the person not willing to even come to the store.

Okay that it enough ranting for one day.  I know I sound old but I cherish peace above all else in my life.  My nervous systems is burned out from all the fight and flight I have subjected it to over the years and I am not interested in making everything life and death anymore.  I will accept what is my responsibility and when it isn't I will do what I can to help get things back on track.