My sister called yesterday, just to check in, I guess. Oh sure, it was nice of her to call, but if the truth were to be known, we have very little in common other than our bloodline! And why is it I always feel demeaned and somewhat depressed after our conversation!? It’s those subtle messages delivered in the guise of “support” that make me cringe! I had to do some damage control after the phone call!
At first glance, I thought I was just being overly sensitive and critical, but no. There’s more to it than that. It’s the way she portrays herself, and her life, as the ideal to be imitated if one ever hopes to be successful. ARGH. Here’s an example.
“Do you pray?” she asked.
“AHH…..what do you mean by pray?”
“You know, do you talk to God?”
“Oh sure, when I’m not swearing at him!” (That was a joke, but she didn’t get it.)
“Or how ’bout the Archangel, Michael? You should talk to him and tell him what you need. Ask three times and when your request has been granted, say thank you, thank you, thank you and release him so he can get to work for someone else.”
“Ah……ok. Sure.”
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Number one, since Michael is an Archangel, I’m quite certain he has very good hearing and asking once would seem to me to be sufficient. And, number two, since he is an angel, can’t he do more than one thing at a time? He needs me to “release” him???? This is sounding very hocus-pocusy to me.
Oh, but there’s more. As I said, we have little in common. I’ve been married and divorced more times than I’ll mention. She got married once, in her late forties or early fifties, and will probably remain married to this guy till one or the other of them dies. I have two kids. She has none. I don’t believe in organized religion, she is a “practitioner” at her church. (What is that anyway?) I don’t “exercise”, don’t eat right, and drink wine. She plays golf, goes for walks, eats health food and doesn’t drink alcohol at all. So you can see, we’ve chosen very different paths in this lifetime, which is really no big deal.
One thing we do have in common is that we each own our own business. I am, admittedly, that proverbial “struggling artist”, preferring to create something rather than market anything, although I do enjoy and am somewhat good at sales. When I mentioned this to her she said “Sales is not marketing and you never were any good at marketing!” Well, thank you for that insight! I said I was going out the door again this week with my notecards, her response was “And how’s that working out for you?” Questioning my judgment, are you?
There are more examples of these kinds of subtle messages in this conversation, but you probably get the point. It’s no wonder I had to mentally reassure myself that what I’m choosing is indeed totally OK!!! So I’m not rich, or famous, or married. It doesn’t mean I’m less successful in any way than my sister. It just means she, obviously, thinks I am. The good news is I am not here to live up to anyone else’s expectations…and neither are you!
Today I have to decide whether to pay my electric bill or not. To do so means I’d have to take the last dollars out of my savings account. It isn’t like that account is earning any interest, so that can’t be the problem. It’s gotta be a psychological thing, reminding me how scary my financial picture has become recently. I know I’m not alone in feeling downright scared shitless in these difficult economic times, but damn, it requires a daily concerted effort to remain positive about the future.
Yesterday I mentioned that I’d be posting this rant on “attempting”, or “trying“. Years ago, I argued for the concept of trying. I don’t any longer. Now I am “in the process of learning” rather than trying. The bottom line is either you do or you don’t. You fail or you succeed, right? This was so simply illustrated to me when a now former husband threw a pencil on the table and screamed at me “Go ahead. Try to pick that pencil up!” Well, dah…….I got it instantly! I’ve dropped the word try from my vocabulary now. So simple! 
