Happy Holidays kids. I have had an...interesting few days, to say the least. I've had the toothache from hell for about two days now and it was so bad the night before Christmas Eve that I woke up at three in the morning and took a handful of Tylenol. Since then I've been on ibuprofen round the clock, but the toothache has kept my mind off the constant joint pain. If it ain't one thing, it's another. But I slept (almost) through the night last night and have felt little mouth pain today and for that I am thankful cuz it hurt like a MOFO. My holiday has been uneventful this year. Not the usual grouping of stories to report back about. Part of that is the uncomfortable...uh...ness of my brother and his wife not being on speaking terms. Yeah, that was fun. Another reason is probably that the 24th marked the one year anniversary of a death in the family and everyone is still unsure of how to navigate it. But the holidays are for family and we've all been able to spend tons of time together so that's been awesome. And crazy aunt's sister (other crazy aunt) gave me the usual holiday grilling about when I'll be having more kids (not for a few more years at the very least) and getting married (never, and hopefully this year she got the message that my decision has been made on that subject).
This morning I spent an hour driving around with my loved ones looking for a Starbucks that was open. The line took forever and while we were waiting I got a call from an unknown number. I answered and had no idea who the person on the other end of the line was, even though she knew my name. The holidays bring out a lot of people I haven't heard from in awhile so I figured I was just drawing a blank on which friend this was. Only it wasn't a friend, it was one of my half siblings. Enter mixed emotions. I've written before about my brother's desire to reach out to some of our half sibs but my sister and I not needing to know anything about them. I don't know if my brother even keeps in touch with any of them but I know he met at least one in the months following our father's death. I also met one, though not exactly voluntarily, and we talked for a few before I let it be known I wouldn't be in contact with them anymore. I thought we were on the same page there. I thought that she would at least respect my decision not to get to know any of them. And she did, for awhile. She wished me a Merry Christmas and asked how I'd been doing, etc. and I didn't say much before saying I had to hang up because we were about to get our drinks.
The entire call was 2 minutes but it's provoked hours of mixed emotions and thoughts for me. After we hung up she texted that she'd like to talk again soon but I never replied. I guess I don't know how to feel. I definitely do not want to talk to her (or any of them) again. It may sound harsh but it's not like these people mean anything to me. I vaguely remember my mom telling us when we were kids that we had half siblings, we even knew their names, but I never thought anything about it. In a lot of ways our father's death turned a page for me and I'm not anxious to revisit that time at all. But I've been thinking about it today. In the immediate aftermath of his death I was intrigued by the things we had in common and I went through this weird period of needing to know more about him. Then I started to to hate what we had in common and I wanted to distance myself from those things. I told myself I'd revisit the similarities later on, when the emotions were less raw. But it's been two years and I've yet to do so. I don't want to. But...maybe today was a sign that I should...
