I’m having trouble keeping track of dates lately. It’s pretty silly. I thought that my first meeting of the Holistic Moms Network (we’re going to talk about organic gardening and worm farms and such) was last Tuesday, but uhm oops–it’s this coming Tuesday instead. I found this out after I had already driven down to south San Jose. oops.

So I called my sister to see if she wanted to spend some time with Shanna and me. She did and we met up at the mall near her house. We sat in the food court and talked for about 45 minutes. Then we walked around the mall talking for another half an hour. Then we headed to my car and talked for another hour even though I was supposed to be leaving. It was really really good. Our talking meandered through many many different subjects from fluffy idle chit-chat to intense processy kinds of stuff. We actually managed to talk about her penchant for rewriting history. I got her to acknowledge that she does it. I was really really really happy she finally acknowledged it. We talked about why she does it. She told me that she sometimes can’t psychologically cope with admitting the terrible things she has done so she “forgets”. I think that is a huge thing for her to say. I told her about the book Shame and Guilt that I found very helpful and she said she would be interested in reading it and pointed out that her birthday is in a couple of weeks. So I’m ordering it for her. We talked about the blame and shame we each feel for things that happened in our family. It was kind of interesting to talk about those things finally with someone who was there with me through the trauma. Our perspectives are so different.

We spoke ruefully about our mother. I pointed out how I believe our mother’s behavior is about playing favorites and Denise said she thinks mom is just thoughtless. I hate to come down from my position on anything, but the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Sissy pointed out a few ways in which she feels our mother has treated me badly and the sense of validation I got from that was intense and overwhelming. We talked about my brother (the one who is still alive) and how he has cut us both out of his life. She said that as far as she is concerned he is dead. I told her that he really isn’t dead, it would be easier if he was. That made her pause and think. After a while she admitted that I was right–we have less (internal) conflict about Tommy (the dead brother). We talked about whether chosen family takes the place of biological family. I told her that recently my experience of my chosen family is that they don’t take the bonds any more seriously than my biological family so I’m pretty lonely. She tried to do her blustery, “You don’t need anyone…” thing and I told her that I do need my family. She hugged me when I cried.

We talked about when I turned her in to CPS. That was an interesting conversation. I told her that, for lack of a less geeky way of explaining it, I am lawful good. I have to follow the law. I can’t live with myself if I don’t. She asked me how I would feel if my actions sent her to jail (I didn’t even quibble about whose actions would be responsible) and I told her that I would feel terrible and guilty and ashamed but I would have to do it anyway. I told her about the weeks of crying I did before and after turning her in. She seemed surprised that I cared. It was pretty intense but I think that discussing it might help. She said that she is waiting till my niece turns 18 to give me her address, but that she will do so then. I don’t really blame her.

We also spent a while discussing the sexual merits of our various partners over the years. That part was pretty funny. 🙂

Well, when I went to the door today for the UPS man I knew it was something from Noah’s family because they can’t fucking spell my name. When I open the package what do I find?

A god damn silver spoon.

I’m serious.

From Tiffany’s even. It’s engraved with her name. I…

Well, the in-laws responded. To Noah and not me. And they all want the feet picture, which we got one copy of.

I think I quit.

Her surgery was postponed so I didn’t get to find out about that. We gabbed about all kinds of baby related stuff. Apparently in several of her pregnancies she only gained 12-15 lbs so I’m feeling a lot more secure in not gaining a lot of weight. 🙂 She had decent sized (all in the 7-8 lb range), healthy babies who were all born on the early-ish side. We discussed her difficulties with breast feeding and how they seem to be really common in the family. Good to be forewarned.

We also talked about some random frustrating things happening in my life and I mentioned that being direct seems to have helped the problem and she said, “Well, it usually does.” I said, “With that as the segue…” Of course she said, “Uh oh, what did I do?” She is very paranoid. I told her that I got very nervous when during the last phone call she mentioned selling her house so she would be able to move. We talked about why she wants to do it. She bought this house so she could be close to Jimmy and his kids. It’s a small town and it is a nightmare commute to where she works. She feels reminded all the time of the loss of the kidlets. She said she has no interest in ever living in a place where it snows. I told her that it is probably for the best. She is kind of sad that I don’t want her to move with me, but she agrees that we get along much better with more distance and that it would probably kill our relationship if she followed me. I don’t think she likes agreeing with that statement, but she knows I am right.

Is good. Now I can stop being nervous about that one. She is going to try and come up here for a visit before her disability leave ends because she would like to see me pregnant. I told her that would be ok. I think it would be ok because she would mostly see Aunt Vonnie and getting a little bit of Mommy-attention is nice.

Much better conversation. Kid in the picture is Jimmy’s oldest son, Koby. I wonder if I will ever see him again.