Family Responsibility

It starts so young. And I can't remember if this is a memory I actually have or a memory of you that I have fashioned from watching dozens of first born children being taught to hold their newborn sibling while their parents say, "are you going to be a good big sister? are you going to take care of the baby?" You'll probably do it to when your second child is born. And in that small way, you'll participate in the long history of eldest siblings receiving their younger siblings as small, helpless bundles and being ushered to protect, care for, and to take responsibility for them. 

If I have children, I will charge the younger ones to take care of the older ones just as much as the older are tasked with caring for the younger. It may not make the burden equal and may not avoid the mistakes I made, but at least then the younger ones won't be surprised that the eldest feels responsible. 

But like I said, I don't know if this is what our parents did. I do remember more clearly what came after. See, you don't remember our parents being married. You were 3 when they split. I was 7. And I remember the prelude to the divorce -- the shouting, the way you cried and it took a long time for the adults to look your way because they needed to finish shouting whatever they were shouting or wait for you to get louder before they'd comfort you. But I was there and comforting you was the only thing I could distract myself with. 

I was 5 years old the first time I found dad crying. I don't know why he was crying exactly. All I know is that I found him in the garden racked with deep sobs. And when I asked him what was wrong, he told me about his father and the abuse and I comforted him. This is the moment that I know that I was never going to have a childhood like normal children, whatever normal is. I was 5 years old and here is my dad telling me about his abuse, how it still hurts him inside and making me swear that I will always ask for help if someone treats me or you that way. 

 It's only in adulthood that I wonder if he had these conversations with his other daughters or only his firstborn. And maybe this is why I am the protector and the fighter that I am today. This early knowledge of the world being askew. This first look at a trauma that would define so much of our lives. This deep and desperate longing from my dad to be loved but being so afraid that all love is like his father's love. This task of protecting myself and you from people like the grandfather we would never meet. The way he would always after this strive to not be his father even though that would often mean that he was no kind of father at all. 

And then the divorce. I laugh now at how stupendously understated the divorce was. But I can picture where I was standing near the front door of the house near Woodland Park with mom who I think surprised herself by picking this moment to have a conversation that she must have been dreading enough to need to sneak up on. She told me that her and dad would no longer live together, that it wasn't my fault, and that I would need to choose who to live with. And I know that I almost said dad but that I changed my mind at the last second. But more importantly, I would go back to this moment again and again in the years to come and wonder what would have happened if I had made a different choice, what life would have looked like. After years of trying, I cannot imagine living full time with dad. He has never been that consistent, sleeping through the time to pick us up from school, forgetting which day of the week it was, skipping Christmas, and so on. But maybe you would have thrived more at his house than at mom's. No one asked you since you were a toddler. I wore the weight of that decision around my neck every time our stepdad lashed out at you.

So here we are. Me not even 10 years old yet and you just learning to talk and already I am making decisions for the both of us. Already I am dad's caretaker and confidant. Before he started dating again, it was me who comforted him and made sure the gaping vacuum of needing to be loved was filled. This would go badly for us later when I would grow up enough to shy away from such unhealthy boundaries, from giving my approval and unconditional acceptance to someone who would give me so little in return. The guilt from how this hurt me would eat him up long after I had done the work to forgive him and rebuild myself. But that is still 10 or more years in the future. It hasn't happened yet.

As we grew up we would only add to my responsibilities as the oldest. For the most part, I would take these on eagerly because I was so desperate for both encouragement from our parents and for some amount of agency over the chaos that surrounded us. So I became a planner and a forecaster who knew not only both of our schedules but also how to predict and navigate the many volatile moods of both our dad and stepdad. I became versed in how many ways all 4 of our parents could break the English language into dialects so that each was incapable of communicating without me to translate. I learned what information was vital to pass along and what I should leave out. 

And with every twist and turn of our upbringing, I took on whatever responsibility I was asked implicitly or explicitly to take on. I remember feeling at times like I didn’t have a choice and at other times that while I did have choices, they were all garbage. There was no good or perfect option. So I tried to hurt as few people as possible and forge something like stability but I was faking it. Always. And to make it easier I told myself that what I wanted and what I needed didn’t matter. And in a way, they didn’t. Or they couldn’t. If I had let my needs and wants matter, I would have fallen apart. I used to fantasize about getting a terminal illness so that I could have a reason to rest and give up on trying so hard. But I remained healthy so I kept trying long after it was healthy or good.

When our stepdad started picking on you, I found my voice. You might not remember, but I was pretty quiet growing up. I would have liked to remain that way. But our stepdad made silence intolerable. I couldn’t stand his arbitrary rules or watching him tear into you. And then dad started changing before he was diagnosed with diabetes and the mood swings that would come with high blood sugar and alcohol and I needed more words and more bravery for that too. So I learned to fight, to protect, to communicate. Over and over again I learned the price of not speaking up and I began to resent paying it. It's ironic now that our family wishes I was quieter because they made sure that there was never any hope of that.

Do you remember the day our stepmom found out about dad's affair? How I packed the bags so we could escape? And how dad came to me afterwards seeking permission to divorce her? How he stayed and pretended to work things out? And all that time I wondered if I had chosen badly. If I should have let him go. I was 11 or 12 when he asked that. The next 6 years were a brutal unraveling of their marriage. I realize now that dad might not have talked with you about his marriage in the same way. And he probably didn't ask permission to leave our stepmom. Just like he didn't ask you what you thought when he moved away. And I know you wish he had asked at least about that, but I never wanted the responsibility of being his conscience or confidant. Still he asks about you and our younger sister to this day and I know his implicit question is for my approval and validation that he has done something right, anything at all. But my opinion has never mattered or made things better. It's all of the responsibility without any of the power you think might come with it. 

I could go on. All of these memories are tangled up like thick spiderwebs and once I start wandering through them, it's hard to stop and extricate myself. I have years of feeling responsible but powerless stored up in these bones. I was pantomiming adulthood and parenting by imagining what I wished I had. And I didn't want any of that burden. It was so lonely. But I had to try to make things better. Because if I gave up on that, I wasn't sure that life was worth living. And so, in some way, taking care of you and our other sister kept me alive. And I've always been grateful for that. Not that you can't be hurt by my failings. You have been and I accept that. I did the best I could and it's ok that it wasn't enough for you. It's ok that you're angry. But don't ask me to apologize for trying.

Turning 30 has had me more than a little introspective. I've started several journal entries, notes and blogs as I think about my 20s, as I celebrate them closing out. I enjoyed my 20s more than my teenage years. But truthfully, that's not saying very much. Even though I have tried to embrace my growing up, to confront the wounds it left me, and to celebrate the peculiar strength it imbued me with, I breathe a sigh of relief with every year I put between myself and those dark years. I would feel guilty for that if it wasn't such a stark, unchangeable truth. I would apologize if it felt like something I had agency over. But I feel that relief like a breath inhaled in the quiet of a yet undisturbed morning. 

I went through my 20s hoping for answers, for permission, and for validation. I found only the crumbs of those things and I had to learn to make those crumbs enough or go without. 

Answers. I thought I would be taught by some outside force what I was meant to do with this life, what I was good at, and what I wanted. This last decade has been a slow peeling back of layers as I discover that no one, not even God is going to answer those questions. That I have to answer those questions as honestly as I can. That I have to mine the answers from deep inside of myself. I may receive help or encouragement from any number of sources, but I will never receive a meaningful answer from an outside source. 

Permission. I wanted to be interesting. I wanted to make things. I wanted to matter. I wanted to have a career or hobbies that I was deeply passionate about and that made my soul hum with purpose. And I was waiting for permission. It wasn't until I was first working in a job that could have been my dream job had the people not been so miserable and then fired from that job  (and relieved to be fired)...only then did it occur to me that permission wasn't something I was ever going to get. In fact, the whole idea of permission was a little bit of a farce. There are just people who do things and people who don't. There are people who follow their gut, plans, and/or heart and people who wait for someone to tell them what to do. And what happens when what you're told is "no"? What if, over and over again, no one gives you permission to be yourself?

Validation. Again, I wanted to be interesting, to make things, and to contribute in a meaningful way. But 2 out of 3 of those things are highly subjective. And I was waiting for an outside source to accept my contribution. I wasted a decade on judges who don't exist. I wasted a decade waiting for "someone" (anyone) to recognize my skills and contributions as unique and meaningful. And that waiting made the rejection in my career heavier than it would have been if I had chosen more carefully who got to have input on my worth. 

I mourn the way I wasted so much of this decade appealing to people and things that were not qualified to give answers, permission, or validation. But I celebrate with hope the idea of having learned better. And I know that many people in my life will look at who I was in my early 20s and miss her. My insecurity, my eagerness to mold myself into whoever and whatever someone needs me to be, my bone deep need to be useful. And that knowledge gives a small sense of dread to the next decade because I know that I have left those things behind. I do not need everyone to like me anymore. I don't need to be understood. And I'm not so desperate for validation. I've learned how to make do with the questions and answers that I have. And I know myself so much better than I ever used to, my limits, my unkindness, my generosity, and my selfishness. I take comfort from knowing that while I may be less likeable to the passing stranger (or even to family members), I am more at home in my skin than I have ever been. And when people don't understand me, it's their job to ask questions instead of always and only my job to make myself understood.