The tide is so strong in families. It may be many years that families are apart or have even talked. Lots of life can go by and in a direction that family had little to no involvement and when you find yourself with them it seems we slide into the same roles we had as kids.
Of course family is the subject as I continue through the book Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves. Reading this book has opened so many doors to memories and a desire to understand as much as I can of my past and how that past has and continues to shape who I am as a person. Not for the purpose of placing blame, but for the purpose of awareness and through that awareness, acceptance; healing and through healing comes me who is real and living and being the best me I can be.
This process of looking back is wearing on me and I honestly am struggling some with the wisdom of it all. Admittedly those questions may just be me slipping into old patterns. It may be my hesitation towards the merits of psychobabble. (Ray this comment is not reflection on you) The struggle is feeling balance in the process. Now I wrote that, I am wondering if, again, this is the old pattern of wanting to control the situation and the levels of stress involved. I guess, at the moment, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed and alone in this—feeling a little nuts trying to do this backwards discovery. This is not easy and there is much I am attempting to sort out. I could be making too much of all of it too.
This evening I talked to my big brother Kyle. The conversation left me feeling sad and very much alone. Like the little girl who once again needed to stuff my feelings. What I am not sure of is if the need to stuff my feelings is something I impose on myself or if it is something in our history that makes me feel that way. The contact was initiated by me. I have not talked to Kyle even by phone for a long time. He was in Spokane back in June. He and his family were leaving the day we arrived back from our training in Colorado and we just did not make it out to my dad's to see them as we got to town very late. The only reason I knew they were in town was because a girlfriend told me. Family did not. Kind of sad. I also heard from the same friend that they were somewhat annoyed we did not see them or that we do not make a better effort of seeing them here or at their home in Tacoma.
There is a clear pattern of distant relationships—where much time can pass between even immediate members of the family without talking or making any kind of contact. This is really upsetting to me, especially lately. Not to say that I am not guilty of this myself, admittedly I have done this to friends and family. If I had to make a guess why, I would venture to say it has something to do with abandonment issues (fears) and the expectation that people eventually leave. So I let it happen, or do not do much to prevent it. I have been trying to get in my head and determine why and all I can come up with is this explanation and the recognition that everyday life and family demands can easily consume me—I get wrapped up in the here and now. Distance in relationship is acute and I need to deal with this on a number of levels. I mention it because it was on my mind going into the conversation with Kyle.
I am versed at thinking for others on occasion. That said I may have done a bit of that in playing the conversation through my head before he called back. Our history and the childhood we shared, creates a pretty strong current. I was bracing myself for how I expected him to respond to me and to some of the things I wanted to talk about.
A little background and a few observations…
Kyle and I were close all the way until after he returned from desert storm. I am not sure if it was something specific that changed or just proximity. Our two families are very different. Mostly in that Rob and I seek to have Christ at the center of our home and all we do. Kyle knows the gospel and my uncle swears he received Christ as a youth, but his life does not testify to it.
Please pardon the use of a stereotype, but for the sake of description I am going to use one. Kyle is your classic tough guy—muscle cars, martial arts trained, expletive rich language, hunter, fisher, biker. He is employed as a correction officer and recently working with narcotics unit at the prison on McNeal Island. He also re-enlisted in the reserves as a MP. It all fits, and provides a legal environment too for his frustrations. (He has been known to be angry and a hot head at times). Kyle is my half brother and his biological dad was a hot head too and broke his arm as a baby. So trauma had begun for him prior to when our mom, married my dad.
Kyle was forever the big brother as we grew up in the crazy environment we did. He protected me and my mom, and our step mom repeatedly in explosive conflicts. Kyle was ever devoted to my mom and me. So talking to him today about our mom, he was very quick to tell me that "she did the best she could do with what she had and it was not all bad Jodi. Not sure why you would be going through all this, that was then and this is now and frankly I dealt with all of this years ago." After taking about some specific memories about mom he reminded me (like he had to) that dad was not gem either. This is all too reminiscent of our young years. I guess he tended to idealize mom and I did the same with dad. But I always felt like he had strange versions of the same stories. I am guessing I just do not remember it all and some of it he has stretched for effect in storytelling. History showed if I spoke up, I called it as I saw it. Until I began to protect him then I was very careful of what I said as not to upset him. I did this with my parents too. To avoid or control conflict, I learned what to say and do to keep peace as much as possible—this helpful when both parents attempted to pit us against the other. They were pretty free in what they said about each other. We were often caught in the middle with our loyalties being challenged.
My brother Kyle was one hurting boy. Each time mom did not show up or he had a fight with dad or our step mom, I saw his heart break a little more. It made me angry each time mom let him/us down. He would often defend her or make excuses after the tears settled.
We talked about several memories including: times when mom left us alone and we struggled to fend for and feed ourselves, the times she tried to take her own life while we were present, her inability to live in peace, her relationships with many husbands, her cancer battle and some of the content of her journals. We also talked some about dad, his alcoholism, his abuse, and some of the patterns in the family history.
By the end of the conversation I was hurting for him, for me and for the distance in our relationship. As we talked I was ever more aware of the disease of denial. He has no clue the baggage we carry. Sadly he does not seem to care. He has convinced himself he is alright and that he has moved on. My call to him was not intended to open it all up for him, but first of all to connect with him and catch up a bit and secondly to get his perspective on some of the memories. I think I wanted to see if he saw things the same way. However, it left me feeling like I have a problem of obsessing over the past, and that I am isolated in my need to understand. To his credit, we have not had a chance to talk in a long time so he has very little knowledge of our lives and where we are headed and where we have been in the journey to full time ministry. What he knows is second hand and through our newsletters. I only alluded to the motivation for my quest for discovery. And I am sure that was as clear as mud. (Like all of these ramblings of mine of late) Plus Kyle is remote doing training for the MP things and the timing was not right to share the specifics, although I think I would like to at some time.
Yeesh, enough for now… will share more later…
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