Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Fragility, thy Name is Family

Too whacked out to write.

A day with my family in Adelaide for a funeral has wrung me out completely. Being the rock of the family, listening, nodding, lending a shoulder, providing a tissue, taking on other people's grief has left me in a near catatonic state for most of the day.

I'm exhausted.

Also spent the last twenty-four hours wondering how my sister, affectionately known as Manhands, and I come from the same gene pool.

Seriously.

I will write about what happened yesterday after some processing time. After I get out the urge to seriously scream at my sister, affectionately known as Manhands, for being ... oh, I don't know - for just being her. It's hard to look at - well it's hard for me to look at anyway.

Thankfully, I'm back in Melbourne, back in civilisation, back where I know I'm not berated for drinking percolated coffee (sister only has instant), not wanting to eat over processed food or for speaking my mind or not agreeing with Tony Abbott.

My sister thinks Andrew Bolt has a point.

I'M RELATED TO THIS PERSON!

And even better. I'm going back in a fortnight.... to stay with my sister, affectionately known as Manhands. We're running the City to Bay run - well - I'm running. She's walking, because she's "not a psycho like me."

Seriously.

I can't express myself at the moment. I'll give it another stab tomorrow night after I've had a bit of sleep and I've shaken the anger and hurt that I picked up on at the funeral. And dealt with a bit of my own stuff which has come from a day watching a very lovely lady get put to rest. I do have to say that her pink bedecked line dancing club made my day, not because they did anything, but because they are a line dancing club from Aldinga...

Adding insult to injury, I spend a day being called Pandy. I HATE BEING CALLED PANDY! How many times do I have to tell my family this!

Oh, another point - next time round in this thing called life, I'm not, repeat, NOT, coming back as an empathetic healer. No way. It sends you loopy. Especially when you come face to face with this crap. Barrages of grief and raw emotion are like a handful of barbiturates to me.

It will work out with some sleep and water.

It's just there is nobody there to pick up my pieces... which makes all this just a little harder.

I think Jewel says it best. I wasn't going to put songs to my blogs from now on, but this one says it all.

Got that, family!

Please be careful with me. I'm sensitive and I'd like to stay that way.

Bath. Teeth. Bed. An episode of vampire porn with lots of semi-naked Eric Northman.

Normal reception should be resumed tomorrow.

Pand (Just call me Pand, or Pandora - but NEVER Pandy)

4 comments:

Chrissy Barton said...

Brilliant.

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi Pand,

Er - The urge to type "Pandy" was almost too great to bear - but fear not - I shall never address you as such.

Promise.

:0)

Cheers

PM

Kath Lockett said...

You're back 'home' now - your real home - away from your genetically-connected but otherwise-very-different blood rellos!

I'd never call you Pandy either as I *loathe* being called Kathy. Hugs

Elephant's Child said...

Family seems to think that the label entitles them to be hypercritical. And empathy is a very mixed blessing. Hope a nights sleep at home helped.