St. Nmother

When I was 16, my mother had a baby - now, my mother had a baby on average every 2-3 years, so this wasn't as embarrassing for me as a 16-year-old as it might have been for a teenager who somehow didn't realize that her parents actually had sex.  In my NFOO, older siblings took care of infants and young children more than Nmother did - so, when we were out in the world, one of us was usually holding the baby.  This, of course, led to sales clerks and other people thinking that the baby belonged to the teenager holding it - which sent  Nmother into hysterics! This, of course, would make her the baby's grandmother!  Now, there was a lot of attention to be gained by having ever so many children - people in many rural cultures really did believe that motherhood is akin to sainthood - add to that that my Nparents were Catholic and you have an unending supply of saintliness, no matter that Nmother couldn't seem to muster up a hug for a child who needed one.   She always became righteously indignant at people who believed one of us to be the baby's mother, but she never seemed to figure out that if she actually held the baby, cooed and giggled with it, people might think that the child was actually hers...  Of course, to her, most of her daughters were not "motherhood" material - she, Nmother, was the ultimate Mother, the most feminine of all women, the most sophisticated, the woman with the cleanest house, the tidiest children, the loveliest flower garden.  AACK!!!  In reality, we lived in a very tidy, spotless group home. 

Enjoying life and its absurdities

I've been weaving steadily lately - and loving it!  I'm learning new techniques all the time and now I have BOOKS of ideas - ah...  The last scarf I made I'm going to name "It's a Party!" because honestly, this scarf really LOOKS like a party!!  Banana silk, ribbons, color!!! For now, I'm practicing a lot and making scarves as presents for Christmas, Hannukah, birthdays, etc., but I hope to open an ETSY account in a few months and sell woven items online - it's so good to be doing something I love and to look forward to getting really good at it - and it has nothing to do with service!!!

Last weekend, I went with my husband and a friend to a concert - and it turned out that the concert was the next night - long story...  But we'd met some people that I knew from my weaving group and they were going out to hear some Blues and they invited us to join them.  They went on ahead and we joined them a bit later.  Turns out the Blues had been cancelled as well, but we had a snack and talked and it was fun.  So, we were all going to the concert the next night and decided to meet at a local restaurant beforehand to have dinner.  When we got to the restaurant, two of the weaving women were there and there was a group of women at the table with them.  There were 4 of us, and one of the women sitting at the table got up to get another table to accomodate us, when the woman at the head of the table (henceforth to be called Nwoman) announced in a loud voice that adding another table would make it too difficult to have conversations, and all activity stopped.  Everyone sat down again (except us, of course) and Nwoman waved us off to another table!!!   At one point, 2 of the weaving women came over and said hi to us - I was not particularly receptive, since this was just a very odd scenario...  We enjoyed ourselves, though, and headed off to the concert without them.  At the concert, the weaving women ended up sitting behind us, another long story - at one point, one of the women reached over my shoulder to hand me a card and said, "Here's my information so you can send me those recipes."  (We had talked about this the first night.)  The woman had not even acknowledged my presence at the restaurant and now gave me her card to send her recipes!  The gall!!  Needless to say, the recipes will be sent the day after hell freezes over.  Or maybe the next day.. 

This was some sort of odd test, I think - I was with my husband, my friend, and a friend of my friend, who I had met only once before.  Had I been alone, I would have left, but time was limited and I live in a city where a lot of restaurants don't open before 8 - and the concert was at 7.  So I didn't say anything and we stayed.  The meal was good, the company was excellent, so there you have it.  My response now?  The weaving women will remain weaving acquaintnnces only, and I will never agree to meet them outside of weaving again.  Ever.  We will discuss only weaving and if our paths cross outside of that context, I will wave and say hello - and keep on walking!  I don't think they're necessarily narcissists, poor things, but they're certainly not brave folk and right now, I need brave folk in my life.  And maybe some people with better social skills!!!

It's a Party!



Practice, practice, practice!

My focus lately has been on working on not being noticed by N's as supply - and it's working!  I went to a party last week and not one of them spotted me, apparently, because I wasn't cornered and talked to death, no one told me all the awful things that had happened to them that week, and no one gave me "the look" from across the room.  It was nothing short of delightful!  It's becoming more natural: 1.  Not to smile at people I don't know, 2. Not to make eye contact with people I don't know, 3. Not to lean into conversations with people I don't know, and 3. To get up and leave when numbers 1, 2, and 3 don't work.  No explanation - just leave.  In months past, I would have considered all of this rude - now, I see these rules as survival skills - I have to learn to stop being supply of any sort.  I want my life to be my life, my time to be my time, my energy to be my energy, and I don't have time to waste on N's and their ilk.   I also have to practice for my brother's wedding next fall - WWW and her Flying Monkeys will undoubtedly be there and all of these things have to be second nature to me by then so I'm not sucked into their webs, so I don't backslide into supply behavior.  I am remembering more now (without having to say it to myself all the time) that most stuff in the world is none of my damn business and that most people in the world don't really need to know much about me at all - it's none of THEIR damn business.  My boundaries are getting stronger every day and I'm loving the freedom that gives me.  Who knew that life could be so worry, guilt, and shame-free??  Who knew that boundaries would allow me to be more me??  I can actually spend time during the day doing NOTHING and not feeling guilty about it - or I can weave when I know that that house needs cleaning and not feel guilt or shame - just joy that I have the freedom to do whatever it is I want to do, productive or unproductive - hurrah!!!

Explaining, explaining...

Another "Eureka!" moment - sometimes, when I tell a story or feel the need to explain something, I do go on and on....  I give every detail, I explain until I've told absolutely everything - and this morning, I figured out why! I've been accused of lying since I was young (and I'm sure I did my share of lying when I was young...). Nparents and Nsiblings who are "naive" or who just don't want to look at a situation often accuse others of lying, thereby making it so they don't HAVE to look and are excused from reality and can continue to live in this fairyland/fantasy/myth they've created in their heads, with the WWW and her Flying Monkeys the truth-tellers and the rest of us the liars.  This, despite the fact that Nmother used to tell me that when she asked me certain questions, I could feel free to lie!!!  She said she didn't need that much truth.  So my going on and on is a way to try to get them to see that what I'm saying is, indeed, the truth.  So how has this worked for me so far?  Hmmmmm...  NOT AT ALL!  My MO has to change - there has to be more "need to know" and less "Let me tell you all the details so you believe me."  I have to stop trying to get Nsiblings to believe me - the myth is so strong in our NFOO that all the talking does no good  If W1 and W2 choose the myth over the truth, so be it.  I certainly can't change their minds -W1 is just so "naive", she just wants us all to get along - and in the end, in her eyes I will always be the liar because her job has always been and will always be to protect the WWW and her Flying Monkeys.  W2, for some reason, probably that he was Nfather's target, has decided that his role is to comfort the WWW and her FM's and try to get everyone to get along, without "taking sides" - ie., staying blindly neutral, closing his eyes to what is really happening.  I can live with all this - I just have to shut up and stop trying to justify myself.  The truth of our NFOO has set me free - and if they choose to live in bondage, that is their choice and I must honor that. 

Sickness as weakness

When I was growing up, I had horrific allergies -  Nfather didn't "believe" in allergies (as if it were some sort of faith experience) and poo-pooed the idea that my constant runny nose, hacking cough, sneezing, and throat-clearing were allergies but were instead somehow evidence of bad character instead of a reaction to the world around me.  Later, as an adult, I got myself tested - when the allergist came back into the room, he was looking at the results of the scratch tests and shaking his head.  When I asked what was wrong, he said that he'd never had anyone allergic to the "control" before!  (It turned out it was a grass that grew only on an island  where I had spent a couple of years, so it did make sense that I'd developed an allergy to it...)  So I got treatment and felt better.  A couple of years later, I found out that Nfather's mother had had asthma! 

My NFOO is so odd about illness - people are "blamed" for their illness unless the person with the illness is WWW, her Flying Monkeys, or the Silent Partner - they all have illnesses that are not their fault.  When I was sick as a child (I once had measles and mumps at the same time ), I was put in a room and pretty much left alone so as not to contaminate the other siblings.  There was no comfort, no story reading, no cool cloth on feverish forehead - only complaints that I was taking too much time.

 Even as an adolescent, any illness was treated as an inconvenience to Nmother.  One was supposed to suck it up and go on!  Between my sophomore and junior year of college, I developed abdominal pain and called my eldest sibling, who took me to the hospital.  I couldn't walk upright and when the blood work came back, my sister's eyes widened remarkably - she was a med tech - and she got a panicky look that I'd never seen on her face.  Scarey.  It turned out to be an ovarian cyst that ruptured, but Nmother and Nfather never showed up - I was in the hospital for 2 days 45 minutes from where they lived - and nothing.  Who were these people and where were my REAL parents?  Who doesn't show up when their kid is in the hospital and the doctors aren't sure what's going on? 

Because of all this, there was little communication among siblings about some things that would have been helpful to know about - I have 2 siblings with severe allergies, 1 sibling survived anorexia (although I think she's been in danger a few times), 1 sibling had anorexia, 1 sibling had colon cancer, 1 sibling has Graves disease, 1 sibling had a blood clot burst in a lung, a couple siblings have had menstrual issues and difficult conceiving, 2 sibs have fibromyalgia - and the list goes on!   But most of this is not common knowledge - it's too dangerous to talk about medical issues because if you do, you'll be BLAMED for them. Better to just keep quiet than to become a target.  Ah, the legacy continues!!!

Holidays made me sick

When I was a kid, I was almost always sick on holidays.  Every holiday.  It turns out that I'm allergic to pine trees, so that explains at least part of the illness at Christmas, but I think most of it can be explained by pure stress.  Part of the stress was that Nfather had a movie camera - how I hated that thing!!!  There was no sound, so while he was filming, Nparents would be yelling at us to smile, to look happy!  We were the Cleavers on film with crazy yelling and direction going on behind the scenes. To this day, I can't watch those films - watching them makes me wince and want to cover my eyes.  I can see the pain, not the lie that they wanted to present to the world - not that we had film viewings, mind you!  We rarely had company of any sort, even family.  It wasn't until I was in high school that I even realized that a lot of the people in that small village were related to me. 

I've tried over the years to make holidays less stressful, to not feel that they have to be perfect, that my kids must have GREAT memories of every holiday, that the food has to be wonderful and abundant...  This year, we're going to my daughter's for Christmas and at least 2 of my loving siblings will be there as well as my son and his girlfriend- I'm looking forward to walking in the snow, visitng family and friends, going to yarn shops,and generally relaxing.  Will there be stressors? Of course - Nmother died on Christmas Day last year and I'm sure that will have an impact, although since I'm NC with WWW and her Flying Monkeys, not as great an impact as it might have had.  And I don't need holidays to be perfects anymore - they're to celebrate family (real family) and friends, to celebrate God's blessings, and to have fun in the company of those you love!!!   What a delight!  I'm sooooooo looking forward to Christmas this year!

Reaping the Whirlwind

I've known for a long time that when I start losing weight, I'm elated - and then I'm terrified. I thought it was because my mother was a victim and I was terrified of being a victim, too - but, nooooooooooooooo, It turns out that my Nmother was a partner with MNfather and the unspoken rule was that no one (except the WWW, of course)could look as good as Nmother! No one could be as pretty or as thin as Nmother without reaping the whirlwind. So now the Nmother is gone and I am NC with the WWW and her Flying Monkeys, losing weight is not terrifiying! In fact, it's just downright mind-blowingly wonderful! I look in the mirror every day, not just to check that I'm put together before I head out, but actually to admire myself. It's a new world, one that I not only belong in, but am meant to thrive in!! Food has been a comfort to me my whole life, in part because the Nmother who couldn't love her children loved to bake - and I did take comfort in that! Over and over and over... it'll take a while for me to lose the armor I've been carrying around with me, but I'm ready to face the world as me, the Real Me, not as some poor thing that Nmother created to make sure she was identified as the True Princess!