Guest Post by Nell @ Meanwhile...
This is the second post I have written for the Velveteen Mind this month, and no, you're not missing anything, I didn't publish the first one. But the two are related. And in the interests of time (a valuable commodity in these final days of NaBloPoMo) here are some things you should know before I begin:
- There are always two or more members of my husband's family who are not speaking to each other in a given month, and this makes for some tricky organizing around the holidays.
- The first post was about juggling family during the holiday season and how much more difficult it is when members of your husband's family are not on speaking terms.
- Although half of S's family lives right across town, we barely ever see them. This is more or less a no-fault situation as far as I can tell, neither of us makes much of an effort, and we're all busy.
- I am terrible at remembering people's birthdays. I once called my very best friend in the whole world on her birthday, talked for half an hour, and then asked when her birthday was.
I was feeling like the post was a little whiny and was thinking about changing it anyway, when we received this email from S's brother in response to an invitation to our youngest daughter's birthday party next Sunday. It was sent simultaneously to S, his mother, his sister, and me.
Subject: I don't think so
Hey All,
The [X] family, over here by [X] St, will not be attending dear F's birthday, its not like we don't want to, or even that we couldn't if we so chose too. I just think I'm real sick and tired of remembering other peoples kids birthday, with real nice gifts, I might add, and have my cute, adorable, relevant child, all but forgotten by ALL [X] family. Way to go Fam....Don't fear I will send a gift.
Brother and Wife.
S's initial response was full of anger and sarcasm. What the hell was this? His relevant child, what the heck is that supposed to mean? We weren't asking for them to remember any birthdays or bring gifts, all we did was invite them to a party, how exactly does that make us the bad guys? And why does he sign it from both of them? We know it's him - she wouldn't say that shit.
I convinced him not to send it. "Don't go that way," I said, "it'll only antagonize him, make things worse. Be neutral, conciliatory."
He agreed and together we came up with this response, which we sent:
Brother and Wife,
We are sorry that you don't wish to come over. We didn't come over on Nephew's birthday because we were informed that he was sick and you weren't having party. We have a present for Nephew sitting on our counter. We were going to give it to him when he came over. We always invite everyone in our family to our house for the girl's birthdays. I'm sorry you feel like Nephew has been slighted in some way, that was never our intention, and we apologize for any misunderstanding. The invitation still stands if you change your mind.
To which we soon received this reply:
your woman saw Nephew on his birthday and didn't even say happy birthday, still haven't heard word one from any one, unless you count your e-mail response just now. come to think of it. its not about the gift. lets just not pretend to be something we are not.
After stomping around the house saying, "Your woman? He calls me your woman?" about a million times, I calmed down enough to help S write another conciliatory response. We kept it brief:
Brother,
All I can do is apologize again. There was no slight intended and we are sorry. If this is something you can't forgive then I don't know what else to say.
It's true – I did see Nephew on his birthday. His birthday is on Halloween (and yes, I realize that this should make it easier to remember). In the midst of trick-or-treating preparations, I received a phone call from S's other sister saying that my nephews were sick, and just moments later S's brother showed up with his kids. It was hectic, and all I could think was WTF? You brought your sick kids to my house because why? Warm and loving birthday greetings did not even cross my mind.
I think the reason this bugs me so much is that there is so much that has been left out, so much that S's brother has conveniently forgotten about, and that if we brought it all up it would transform a few rude emails into a full blown feud. I have babysat his wild children so he could go to work; they've never even offered to take ours. We've always attended his kid's parties when they've had them; sometimes they come to ours, other times they don't even RSVP. This is fine, we're not that close with them and I know that not everyone thinks about this stuff the same way I do, I don't hold a grudge, it's not that big a deal. Until they start complaining about how they're always the ones who get shortchanged.
As a writer, I have this tendency to observe people, to speculate and examine other people's motivation for the way they behave, not to judge, just to understand. I often step outside of a situation and try to see it from all the angles, and I get why S's brother is upset, I really do, but the part that I don't get is why he feels like this is a good way to deal with his anger.
How is sending a nasty email to almost all of your family members going to help anything? Maybe he wants to alienate the rest of us? Maybe he wants to feel entitled to his anger and resentment, maybe they have become a part of his comfort zone; just the way things are for him. Maybe he gets stressed out around the holidays, a lot of people do, I get that, and yeah, their mom is not the greatest when it comes to thinking of others, but she doesn't hold a monopoly on that either.
I'm not sure what I want from them. I used to want them to be more like my family – open, direct, understanding (we're no where near as perfect as that sounds, but we do try to talk out issues as they come up) – but I let go of that desire a long time ago. Now all I want is for them to be chill, you know? No one's perfect, I know I'm not, but call me out on it! When I forget that it's your son's birthday, remind me. Don't wait three weeks and then send a nasty email to your entire family!
I'm sorry this post got so long (but hey, it's a double!) and now that I've reached the end I seem unable to compose a satisfactory conclusion. I will just end by saying that while juggling family during the holidays is never easy for anyone, it's even harder when you have to be the grown-up, and even as I've watched S's family do this year after year, I somehow never expected to find myself in the middle of it all.
Don't forget to commiserate with Nell over the insanity that is family over at meanwhile...
Writer. Mother.
