three little words

Could three little words have significantly changed things in my life?  Looking back, I think that the overall status would have remained fairly quo.  But in little ways, those three words would have made a big difference.  How?  Will never know.

How many times in my adult life did I wail to Mom, "WHY do they dislike me so?  What have I done?"?  And every time she would push-tosh me, assure me that of course they liked me - they loved me.  "You're their baby sister."

Mom never had to go into any details, if she even knew what they were, for why Peter, Mim & Mike's wife heaped such scorn upon my head.   It wasn't until 1997 that I added Kerry to siblings who seemed to have no use for me, but the other two were pretty upfront with their anathema since I was in elementary school.  Mind you, Peter didn't seem to have any use for any of us, but his ire seemed particularly focused on me - yeah, the baby sister.

To this day, it makes no sense.  Have wracked my brains, searched my memory banks, and can't come up with anything I did or said that would explain Peter telling a counselor that what had drawn him closer to Mim was discovering that she didn't like me, either.  

And I sensed it.  From an early age, I sensed it, although it went  unquestioned until my thirties.  Every time it came up, would always get the same "Of course they like you..." response.

All Mom ever had to say were those three little words - "I don't know." At least I would have known my read was right.  

My apologies if this has already been covered, but nothing could have been more jaw dropping than the time that Mim, without malice, confirmed that she bore no love for her baby sister.  Said it twice - repeated, after Mom responded to the neutrally given information with "Of course you do!"  Looking back, she might have been as horrified by the calm with which Mim said it & with which I received it as by the admission.  

After the second, confirming statement, Mom did the only thing that she could - she left the room.  No comment, just departure.  

How different some key dynamics would have been if she'd only been able to accept that, perhaps for reasons unknown to her, that my sister & sister-in-law & oldest brother had no warmth or love or friendship toward me.  But she couldn't.  

Thank goodness, there were many lessons learned from all of this.  

• You never really know how people actually feel about you, for good or ill - until 1997, hadn't a clue Kerry held me in such contempt; wouldn't discover until 2007 that Mom knew it since at least 1973.
• Flat-out asking for a straight answer doesn't mean you're going to get it.  
• Trust you gut - mine told me that I was odd man out in our family long before it was confirmed.  
• Don't think of family as the end all & be all of relationships - you didn't ask to end up with them anymore than they asked to end up with you.  
• Don't get invested in what any others, even your nearest & dearest, think about you.  What they think about you is none of your business.
• Don't take things personally.  Because it usually isn't.  
• Cut people a break.  We know a lot less than we think we do.
• I'd rather be me, holding all my sibs in my heart, than be any one of them.  

AND don't - ever - dodge responding openly to a question, even if it's to say you can't answer it.  All Mom had to reply was, "I don't know," or, if she actually did, "I can't say" (which sounds the same but covers a lot more bases). 

Poor Mom.  Want to hold her in my arms & tell her it's all right, because in the long run she was the one who couldn't handle a full answer - whatever it might have been - not me.