Daily reflections after a visit to see my sis.

I am noticing more and more of my resistance lately. I made a special effort to get over to the hospital to see my sis as early as I could today after the fiasco with the bank last week meant I could not make it there. But the rush was probably not entirely necessary as she already had one visitor and a friend is taking her out this afternoon. It was still lovely to see her. I noticed I owned my pain more around her and I told her I get lonely and long for company at times while needing space too. I don’t think it will mean that she calls me ever but at least I said how I feel and what I really would like and need and how it really feels not to get it. Even crying writing this. It was lunch time at the place she is in care and everyone sat and ate separately not talking to each other which was sad. A girl sat near us covered with tattoos and piercings and I felt for her eating her lunch in silence but she had what looked to be a kind and loving exchange with one of the psyche nurses there so I felt she was okay.

We then went back to my sisters room and I got triggered as Sue was sitting in the chair and next to her was her suitcase. I am not sure if is the suitcase that my mother carried and then fell down three flights of stairs about 3 years ago after an argument with the three of us. I remember that day she asked me for help to take it to the hospital but I felt too overwhelmed to go. At the time she fell I was as the dog park and in the middle of the most enormous panic attack. I remember I ran off then and left Jasper in the fenched area and when I got back a kind man with long blonde hair like an angel was with him. I broke down in tears with him and we had a long long chat. It was only hours later I heard my mother had fallen down the stairs. Fear kept me apart then and hurt over the way they both cut me out but today the thought just kept running over and over in my mind that if I was with Mum she would not have fallen. That said I didn’t set the entire chain of other things in motion that led to my sister’s problems with blood pressure due to medication side effects. Never the less I did feel sad today.

Its always a little hard to leave my sister but a relief when I do, its such a mixed feeling. I took myself off to lunch at the nearby centre and got a bit stressed when getting other texts, it was a late lunch and I have been trying to eat at regular times. It had been a cold very very foggy morning so I didn’t walk Jazzie before I left, I raced home at 3 pm then bundled him in the car and we got to the oval for a walk, run around with the ball and a play on the swing set in the park close to where I leave the car.

Saturdays were the day we would often catch up with Mum for a meal. Her best friend went to see my sister today, she never reaches out to me but I just have to accept it. She is the one who told me people are scared of me because of my anger. It hurts to write this but I have to accept it. I don’t want to get caught up in any ‘storylines’ around how I am affected. I just long to be seen and connected to but maybe those are old feelings. That said I do think we need validation and empathy to be shown to us and when they are not it has been proved that certain negative stress chemicals like cortisol increase in our systems. We can literally be affected at a cellular level by absence and presence of empathy and emotional cut offs do impact us not only in one generation but throughout several according to the epigenetic multi generational trauma history work of Bruce Lipton quoted by Mark Wolynn in his book It Didn’t Start With You.

My heart is settling down a little now. Seeing my sister always brings up anxiety. I know I will cry when I am with her. She had a stye on her eye today and her chest is so so painfully burnt by her radiation therapy. She only has three days left of the therapy to go. I cried for her undergoing that I got burnt towards the end of mine but it was not as severe as mine only went for 5 weeks not 6.

Deeper under the surface of this lie the emotions. My sister is the only one of us siblings in the family with my Dads’ moon shaped face, Judy, Gary and I both have Mum and Nana’s longer face with a long nose. Gary and I have Dad’s blond Dutch colouring and Sue and Judy and Mum have Mum’s dark hair. I could not help but think a lot of my father as I sat with my sister today. I thought of how she also lost her dad but when she was 8 years older. I thought of how it must have felt to be left by her husband and to have one son who rarely gets in touch. I tried to enter the reality of my sister today. I feel sad still she doesn’t reach out and I will continue to try, it may end up hurting me I don’t know. I worry my own cancer is back. I am 3 months over due now for my follow up mammogram. I am waiting to see if Scott gets free this week and maybe he will come with me to have it. I have gone through so much alone that it would be nice to have someone there holding my hand. I admit that it would be nice but maybe not necessary.

This isn’t a very emotional post today. I am just sitting in the silence now. I will have a cup of tea. I will have a little chat to my passed loved ones now. I hope for the day to be free of the heavy burden, of the past and find one day that happiness, I glimpse it in moments with Jasper at the park and when Scott and I connect and share a funny gif or joke. I watch too when my resistance to love comes up there, when I get tempted to push him away and sabotage it all due to fear, it happened again to day but I just noticed it and apologised. Maybe its because I have been trying to help I don’t know. Soon I hope to have all my money back, not that it was ever about money, maybe more about trust. I shared everything with my sister today. She has never doubted me or tried to convince me Scott is a scammer, unlike other family members. The truth will be clear towards the end of the week. So watch this space.