So, My ...

 My  sister came out to California and we drove an R.V. back across the country to Louisiana, this was five years ago.  It was the strangest trip I have ever had been on. I heard so many times, "I feel so bad you never had a childhood."  I am not quite sure how many times I heard this from her, but enough I began to do a lot of wondering about it.  My sister is seven years older than I am. We had not spent any amount of time together since I was 12 or 13 years old when she had left for New York City to attend Julliard. She never returned from the school, she had a falling out with my mother and I never heard from her until I contacted her when I took off from home.  At 18 I contacted her and spent a couple weeks visiting her in New York.  I had a good time, it was rather intense and not really the person I had remembered.  So, pretty much since then, 1983 would have been the year I visited, I have not spent anytime with her. I was excited when she offered to have me come back and live with her and her family.  I thought it would be a great opportunity to know if the decision I had made when I was young was correct. I did not always see eye to eye with her, she seemed preoccupied as we all did but I disagreed with some of her tactics.

We lasted for two and a half weeks before she left me with her lover in an R.V. Park in Ft. Worth, Texas.  I still don't know why she left me.  I don't even know exactly how she was able to do it.  It seemed one moment was fine and the next she was packing her bag and walking towards the front gate of the R.V. park and hitching a ride back to LA. She took her belongings and some of mine, walked away without a word.  I wondered if it was the guilt of having a lover when she had a husband. I still don't know exactly why, but the guy she left me with was very cool.  I explained I had never driven and R.V. before, that my sister had done all of the driving across the country. She had failed to teach me how to drive this 32 foot monster.  I told him that I would get him back to the Dallas/Ft Worth airport and that other than saying that, I don't know what to say about what just happened with my sister.

He was an unusually calm man. He put his arms around me and gave me a big hug.  He told me it would be O.K. and oddly enough it was.  Together we ended up breaking camp, an adventure when you have never unhooked things by yourself.  We ended up driving to a Motel near the airport. I was to chicken to drive into the airport, as I had only about 45 miles of driving this beast under my belt.  We are still friends on facebook and he along with one other man that I met randomly on a mutual blogging site, have been real supporters of me when I am down.  Thank you for that day, you made a very strange time, a time that I could get through. I was so grateful that I was not alone when she decided to do this to me.

I don't know why I started to think about this today. I guess it's because it is raining and I don't feel well.  I was sitting here wondering what she meant by saying so many times, that she was sorry that I did not have a childhood.  I was thinking back on when she was talking to me as she drove this R.V.  down the highway. She looked sad, upset, guilty, mad, angry and mostly frustrated that somehow I didn't get it.  She would look at me as she was talking and I would say in response, don't worry about it, if you don't know what you are missing, then you really cannot miss it, she got so upset with me. She told me how I didn't understand how much I was missing. I told her, that was the point.  She told me that when Mom was married to Dad, before I was born that they did this and that, I said, "Yea, I know, you have told me several times." She got angry finally and just said that I didn't get it and never would.  It seemed like she was fighting back all these tears and guilt.  The mixed emotional signals were difficult to react to but I didn't know what to say or do.

We had traveled for quite some time. It takes a while to drive half way across the country.  The subject of my childhood had not come up in conversation for at least 300 miles.  But, then once again the subject was at hand.  I finally stopped her and said, "My childhood was had by me. It may not have been like yours or like anyone else's, but it was mine and I did have one." I thought for sure that this would work to stop her on this relentless battle over my lack of having any childhood at all.  It did not end there, it kept going, almost right up to the time she left me in that R.V. Park.  I wonder if guilt played a part in her leaving me. Almost since I did not chastise her for having a lover and a husband, somehow I was flawed and did not know the simple rules of life.  I wonder why she was so heated over my lack of childhood. Then I wondered why at no other time in my life, when money for her was available to do kind things for me, that she never did anything at all.  In fact, the only reason we were on this trip was that I had contacted her six previous to this lovely disaster in my life that I was currently going through. I was grateful for her offer to live with her. Of course, I had paid for her ticket to California and I was paying for everything up to the time that she left.  It was odd that she did not help me at all, I found it very expensive and had I known I would not have gone, it was far more than I had to spend.  She scolded me at the Grand Canyon because I said lets not by beverages here, they are really expensive. We can purchase them at the next town, it would better on my pocket book.  She was inflamed to say the least, she told me how if I did not spend money like I had money, then I would never get money.  I didn't really know what to say to her, so I bought her what she wanted to shut her up.

I am babbling a bit, but it causes me concern in my life, when I know that my life causes people to be uncomfortable with themselves.  I mean I did not ask for the life that I received.  It is as if my siblings look at me and my very existence causes them to be angry.  My younger sister told me that I should take a gun and blow my head off, that it would be the best thing for the family.  I wonder what it is that I am missing.  Seems ignorant I guess, but I believe I have been missing it my entire life.  Maybe that is what she was driving at when she said that I never had a childhood and was so bothered by this fact. It makes me sad to cause people to be so angry at me and I don't even know why.