One of Those Moments

I was having one of those moments the other evening. One of those moments when disappointments of life suddenly swell up like edema, filling up the empty crevices of my mind, welling up to a point that they block all that my eyes would otherwise see.

I don't even remember what set it off. Maybe a careless word from Jeff, or perhaps a tantrum from my vocal four-year old. A trifling that should have done noticed, brushed off. Instead, it takes over, like a drop of betadine contaminating a pool of clear water.

I remember taking myself to my bedroom, under the covers, even though it wasn't yet dark out, and blocking my eyes against the feelings of hopelessness. These feelings always hover in the wings these days, with the curtain widely parted, ready to take center stage.

In these moments, I see only failures, disappointments, neglect. I remember the people in my life who have moved on without me, let me fall by the wayside. Those who are now too busy, or can't be bothered. No one seems reliable. No friend true. No effort meaningful. I feel alone in this world, and no one notices.

I have fewer of these moments these days, but they still return. They don't let me forget that my life now feels different, that my relationship with the world has changed. I'm no longer the person I used to be. I'm now needier, more suspicious, more prone to hurt. So many words and silences feel like small rejections, and I find myself bracing for them. I can tell that my social persona is different, that I misread cues and don't play my social role as I used to.

The other day, when we were camping, I was walking behind my son, who was walking alongside our friend's dog. He was strolling at the same pace as the scampering pup, who spent most of his time sniffing this and that. After a few paces, my son turned to me and said, "Mom, he likes me!" Even though I saw no signs of affinity from the dog, I nodded and smiled back.

I couldn't help but wonder if our relationships amount to that. A strolling at the same pace, a confusion between simultaneity and attraction.

Noticing my absence, Jeff comes to find me. Wrapping me in a bear hug, he asks what is wrong. Suddenly, my tears come and I find myself stammering to articulate where I am. "What is the point," I find myself repeating. What is the point of all this? What is the point of friendships that dissipate? What is the point of making efforts that go unappreciated? What is the point of working toward goals that fail? And what is the point of family if they abandon you?

He hugs me harder, as he always does in these moments. No stranger to betrayal himself, he listens and nods along. After a pause, he tells me what works for him. Our children. Our little beings who place all their trust in us, and believe us when we say we will keep them safe. Our children who cry when they miss us and are consoled by our touch. They take away the cynicism, he tells me. They help me have faith in people.

It is a thought that jolts me. Since I became a parent almost seven years ago, I have thought a lot about how I could help my children, what I could do for them. But I've thought very little about what they do for me, how they help me.

When I have one of these moments, they come to me with solemn looks on their faces and plant little wet kisses on my cheek. They sit on my lap and wrap their arms around me. They tell me they love me. And I know that there, right there, is one true thing in my life.

A Moment

The sound of our kids' heavy breathing fills the small hotel room. T is under the covers, smack in the middle of the other queen bed about 3 feet away, with the sheets tightly tucked between the mattress and the box to keep him from rolling out. Our little S is curled up in her sleepsack in the pack-n-play by the window, her hair tousled around her face like a protective cloud. The kids passed out immediately after a busy day of visiting old friends and jumping around in an indoor playground. When we drove into San Francisco mid-morning to meet my friend and her daughter at the Academy of Sciences, my six-year-old T, who lived in San Francisco from birth until the day after his first birthday, said, "I love visiting my old friends."

It is only 9pm, but Jeff and I are lying in the dark, whispering to each other, my head on his shoulder, warm under the cover. We hadn't had much time to talk during the day since he came on the trip for business and allowed us to tag along only if we agreed to leave him alone to work. We left him to his meetings after we grabbed my Starbucks in the lobby in the morning and returned after a giggle-filled dinner.

In the dark, we talk about anything and everything: our schedule for the week, funny things the kids said during the day, his mother's declining health.

I don't even remember what it was I said, but he tells me, "You're a better person than me."

"No, it's not true. That's not true. Why would you even say that?"

"You are a good person," he says.

"What does that even mean, to be a good person?" I ask.

"You always try to do the right thing," he says.

And at this comment, I feel my eyes well up. He doesn't see me cry, but I feel the tears roll down my face.

"But it doesn't do any good. It doesn't make any difference."

He pulls me in closer and tightens his arm around me. And by his deep breath, I know he understands.

He kisses the top of my head and says, "It'll be ok."

I lie there as his words settle around me. I recognize the weight of his efforts -- to try to fill the void that he didn't create, to help heal what he didn't damage, to try to compensate when others have failed. I think of the weight he carries for me. And I hope I have the fortitude to do the same for him when my turn comes.

Where I Am

For the past couple of weeks, I've been feeling different. Not as anguished. Not as dejected. Not as aggrieved. The intensity has subsided, and gone is the constant agitation. I don't know what happened, but I no longer feel as if I'm in the middle of a heated ongoing conflict. The crisis has passed, and I feel like I crawled out of the wreckage and am watching an ambulance drive away.

Maybe it is because three of my girlfriends from law school flew in for a getaway weekend. We did the typical things. A spa day. Dined out. Joked about past boyfriends. Gossiped about who's where and doing what. But we also laughed. The kind of laughing you do with friends who know you. They also let me cry in front of them as I filled them on all my family drama. They listened, and tried to advise me, and listened some more.

I've been blogging about the situation with my sister, but I haven't talked to too many people about it. Mainly because I can't stop myself from crying whenever I talk about it. But I let myself cry with my friends in the middle of a festive restaurant as strangers laughed in other corners of the room and as our bowl of orecchiette turned cold on the table. As I talked, I saw the understanding in their eyes. Not just an understanding of my point of view, because they didn't agree with everything I said. But they understood the depth of my calamity. And they understood the context. And the impact it had.

Maybe that's all it took. For someone to understand the situation. For someone to listen and to nod along.

Others have listened and nodded along. Jeff. A few other close friends. But it was different this time. Maybe because I was able to tell the whole story, from beginning to end. Or maybe because these friends knew me from a different time and knew how things were 20 years ago.

I've been struggling with this on my own for so long. Internally. Trying to understand it. Trying to make sense of it. And reeling from the disappointment I feel toward my family. Their inability to help, to be the kind of family I want them to be.

But I'm beginning to realize that it is my perspective that was faulty. I always assumed that my family would be there for me, to help me in times of need. That now seems so naive. I think back to the way we grew up, and I wonder why I even picked up that ideal in my head. Why did I ascribe such attributes to my family, when I can find no evidence of them in my memory? Most memories I have of my family are of me trying to help them. Of me cooking for them, listening to and absorbing my mother's sadness, trying to make them happy. And not vice versa. What I remember are my parents' absence. Absent at my high school graduation. At my college matriculation. At my college graduation. Of me helping my sister, and of her not even considering that she could be in a position to reciprocate.

I don't know why I thought my mom should be able to help us. Maybe because I could think of no one else who could, and I thought surely, my mother of all people should be able to. But she has never been one to help me, at least not when emotions are involved. She comes from a culture that believes emotions should be tamed, not caressed. I remember when one of my friends died in college. She gave me one firm hug, and then told me not to think about it anymore. She believes bad things happen if you voice it. That articulating it makes it come true.

I was never able to rely on them. I knew from early on that I was on my own. That if anything needed to get done, I would have to do it.

Maybe I attributed such ideals to them because I was in a void. In their absence, I was free to construct a family in my head, a family of perfect people.

I'm learning that people can disappoint you. Profoundly. And in a way that is critical. But I'm also learning that I have to work through the disappointment. There is nothing else I can do.

I am where I am. And I'm okay.

There has been a difference. It feels as if someone focused the lens. All of a sudden, I am looking at my kids with all of me. They seem clearer. I find myself wanting to absorb them fully. To take them all in. Maybe this is what happens when you clean out some of the clutter in your head.

Grounding

There are those who connect us to the world. Those who love us, care for us, look out for us. Those who ensure that we don't lose our grounding. Who ensure that we don't drift too far off of the ground, higher and higher into the air, into that infinite space. Holding onto us like kids gripping balloons at the state fair.

They grip the string more tightly when the storm comes. And steer us away when we veer too close to a sharp edge. When the wind blows too much and we start drifting away from the usual friendly faces, they tug us in closer.

These days, I can't help but notice all the broken strings around me. The large one that used to lead to my sister. The mainstays to my parents fraying, more and more, day by day. And so many friends I have lost along the way, who wouldn't know whether I'm still alive or dead, but who would surely remember me fondly if I weren't here.

I hold on so desperately to the one leading to Jeff, but with just one grounding point, I feel myself spinning and thrashing even in the mildest of storms. I sometimes reach out to grab the ones leading to my friends, but at the end of my tether, I often feel too exhausted to even try.

I feel lighter these days. And the lightness is unbearable. I am all too conscious of the empty spaces inside me that used to feel filled.

When I talk like this, Jeff gently reminds me of those who rely on me to hold onto them. Like our little ones. Himself.

And I see it. How grounding others can ground us. How the four of us form a huddle, however small. So I hold onto them, and let them hold onto me until I feel myself settling back down.

A Lesser Version

I am a bad mother. Even though this is my fifth year in this role, I find myself worsening, not improving. I see it in my son's eyes. A sweet, serious, and sensitive boy. Older than his five years. One who surprises me with how much he understands. He watches me when I lash out, when I scream and lose it over something seemingly trivial. A TV show that wasn't turned off when I requested, a dirty sock in the middle of the kitchen, a meltdown that I can't shut down. Sometimes, his eyes well up, and other times, he just stares at me, eyes wider than usual, with sorrow and profound confusion.

Little things throw me off these days. A sense of stasis is gone. Trivial events feel like crises. A spat between my children feels like doom, a sign that our future that will surely fail. I find myself constantly muttering, "goddammit, dammit." It's as if all my fears are actualizing, even though they are not, at least not all of them. I still have a loving husband, two beautiful children, my home. Nothing terrible has happened, at least not in my immediate world. But I feel as if the world has revealed itself to me in its naked, unadorned form. It's a world where animals prey on each other, where people are left forgotten, a place where nobody really cares. It is a world where families abandon each other, where people fail to live up to each other's expectations.

These days, I feel as if my ideals of family and relationships were solely that -- just ideals. Concoctions. Figments of my imagination.

A friend recently told me that disillusionments can make us stronger once we confront the disillusion because we can then proceed to work with the truth.

For me, the truth -- at least this version of the truth -- feels unworkable. This unwelcome truth feels like a lie, a letdown, a hopelessness.

I don't know how to find my way back to optimism.

Every negative twist or incident -- however trivial --  feels like proof. Proof that life really isn't what it's cracked up to be. Proof that things really go to shit in the end.

In the midst of all this is sorrow. And fear.

I used to think that I had coping skills. Ability to face some of life's adversities. But any that I might have had now eludes me.  I guess abandonment by a person who was a central character in your life can do that. It can make you realize how alone you are in the world. You are in the negative. Minus one. Minus one person who provided a pillar for your existence. Minus one person who connected you to the rest of the world. Minus one person who saw you. But the effect is magnified because it robs you of all the optimism that you had carried previously. Now everything takes on a negative hue, and it is through this light you assess the damage.

Coping means that you have some reason to look toward the future, to propel yourself forward, to want to move future. And with fewer reasons, your coping skills are bound to diminish.

Jeff is the only one I can rely on these days, and when he's out of town, as he is this week, I feel panicked, vulnerable, alone. It takes effort to keep myself together. To make the kids' lunch, to feed them breakfast, to get them off to school, to occupy myself until I have to pick them up, to take them to their activities, to put them to bed, to endure the night.

I would like to find a way to reclaim some of my inner peace. To regain that unquestioned optimism that things work out in the end. To have a solid inner core that can absorb shocks and disappointments. To speak to my children calmly and with control. To not be rattled.

But today, I feel myself damaged. Afraid and unsettled. A lesser version of my ideal self. In this state, all I can do is ask for forgiveness, as inadequate as it is to undo what is already done.

What is Inevitable

Whenever I cry to my mother about how my sister estranged me, she tells me it's just the way things are.

"All siblings grow up and go in different directions. You now have your own families. You just aren't going to be as close as you used to be."

She says it as if it's natural, inevitable.

Whenever she says this, I protest. With tears, with a barrage of words, with rebuke. You know that's not how it is, I cry. That's not what happened. I offer up evidence of other families who vacation together, who celebrate the holidays together, who don't give up on each other.

She responds that life is inherently lonely, that we all ultimately die alone.

One time, when I complained to my mother about my failed relationship with my sister, she said it's because I'm too strong, too hard. "You're incapable of understanding other people's weaknesses," she said.

Another time, when I grumbled about my sister for abandoning me so easily, my mother said, "Do you think you're perfect? Do you think you are without fault?"

I've begged my mother for help. To help us in a situation where we seem unable to help ourselves. She said, "What could I do? How could I possibly help you? You're grown-ups. You created this fight by yourselves."

I've learned not to bring her up. To pretend all is well. I sit by in silence when my parents talk about her in front of me, trips they've taken with her, meals they've shared. I've sat by their side, with my eyes averted, my head slightly bowed, my breath stilled, as they answer her calls, doing what I can to avoid bringing attention to myself.

I find my mother's failure -- or refusal -- to understand incomprehensible. I've tried to see it from a different perspective, from the perspective of a person who believes life is suffering. I've tried to view it in the light of her own estrangement from one of her own sisters and thought about what kinds of psychological barriers that might impose. I've tried to imagine the perspective of a person who believes herself to be powerless, who has lived in this country for more than 35 years and has yet to learn how to speak the language or how to drive, who relinquishes all control to her husband.

Against these factors, I weigh my efforts to convey the depth of my sense of calamity. I have sobbed in front of her. I've talked to her of how I can no longer trust people, how I couldn't rely on anyone else to stay by my side when my own sister abandons me. I've told her how I'm persistently angry, how I cannot shake this feeling of betrayal. 

She seems to lack the ability to absorb my words. She stares at me with disbelief. 

"You have everything you need," she says. "You have two well-behaved children, a good husband, a large house. Why harp on this one problem?"

I do not know how to make her understand. I lack the skills to convey to her how alone I feel these days. How I now feel like I live my hours on the verge of an impending crisis, of yet another breakdown. How one minor spurn, one signal of rejection, or one careless word is enough to spiral me into a hole of despair. How I feel more like a stranger here on earth, with few friends I feel I can turn to. How what I now see are inevitable doom, inescapable failure, impending betrayal. 

I think about the notions of family I used to take for granted. How I simply assumed we would grow old together. That we would be at each other's weddings, play with each other's children, travel together, laugh together. It never occurred to me that we would throw each other out for whatever the reason. I did not fathom that forgiveness would abandon us after our fights, no matter how terrible. 

And I never thought to question whether they were worth it. That my family was worth whatever effort I put into it. That they were worth however much time I spent with them. That they were worth however much money I spent on them.  

Now, all I see are wasted effort, time, and money. 

I regret the trip I took to Paris with my sister. I regret the countless times I hosted her in Chicago, San Francisco, DC. I regret considering her needs when I purchased my house in San Francisco. I regret including her in so many of my gatherings with my friends. I regret all the times I put her ahead of my friends, ahead of my own needs. I regret the countless hours spent talking to her on the phone. I regret all the segments of my life wasted on her.

And despite myself, this sense of regret projects into the future, and I fear what will become of my relationship with my children, with Jeff, even as I cling to them for one vestige of hope. 

My mother's responses make me reconsider the family we were. What were our values? What did we believe? How did we treat each other? How vastly did we fail to understand each other?

I wonder if all these notions of family I held were fabrications on my part. Mere wishful thinking. Social norms I blindly adopted for our family. Unquestioned assumptions that would inevitably reveal themselves to be false with the passage of time.

I do not understand my mother's refusal to help, her claims of inability. I think about what I would do for my own children if they were in such a crisis. What I wouldn't do to help them salvage their relationship. To keep our family together.

It seems that my failed relationship with my sister has exposed other rotting parts. Or maybe the whole family was perfectly healthy, but one weak point has jeopardized the rest, like removing one cherry stem can cause the whole bunch to drop. I would like to believe that we haven't been decaying all along.

I would also like to believe that her words came from a place that contains no malice, no ill-will, but from that crevice where we lack easy access to other words, to words of sympathy, words of understanding. I would like to think that I have the fortitude to withstand these words without suffering too many bruises.

A Little Less Complaining

Somewhere in the deep crevices of my mind, I must have been entertaining dramatic scenes of reconciliation. Like in those tear jerker movies, where the woman lies on her death bed, gasping her last breath, and someone dear, lost long ago, charges into the room to look the dying woman in her eyes, to forgive, to share those final moments. I think I must have hoped that the specter of cancer, of what that word evokes, would have softened angry hearts. But it turns out that it was only my wishful thinking, yet again.

And the episode is already over. No dramatic moment. No climax. No forgiveness. Just a visit with the doctor this past Friday where he announced that the cells are only precancerous. A quick snip, snip, removal of the precancerous body parts on Monday. And now onto recovery.

The day after I found out that I didn't have cancer, I found myself in the bathroom bawling. And grumbling under my breath. Why was I upset, I found myself asking. It was real, this sense of disappointment. I found myself thinking about my sister. She, who was supposed to be there for me. And yet, it is only Jeff and a few of my friends who even knew about my possible diagnosis and my last two weeks spent trying to fight off worries of what if's.

I found myself rebuking myself in my head. The ridiculous idea of capitalizing on this impending doom. That I shouldn't just be grateful. That I should fail to appreciate the gravity of such an illness. I'm sure anyone with cancer would gladly swap his/her diagnosis with mine. I thought about this dad with stage 4 lung cancer, and how his post made me cry.

I thought about what it meant. That I would entertain the idea of inviting harm onto myself for a reconciliation with her. That idea seems shameful. And I thought about how people who find you only in your moments of impending doom. Are they any better than vultures?  Would I even want someone like that in my life, even if at the end?

Yesterday, after a day at the hospital, we arrived home after 5pm. The night was setting, the kids were tired, and I was heavily medicated. It took all of Jeff's patience to get the kids to stop whining and picking on each other, while I reclined in my seat trying not to move. Jeff helped me up the few steps to our house, and we trudged into the house.

As I was taking off my jacket, I heard Jeff say, "Wow. Look at all this!"

He was standing by the front door looking out to the front lawn. There, we found two bouquets of flowers, a bottle of beer, and a bag filled with home-made pulled pork, steamed corn, mac and cheese, bread, and a hand-made card from their 6 year old. The food was still warm.

I thought about my friend whose husband dropped off the food. They have three little ones, they live 40 minutes away from us, and they delivered the food in the middle of rush hour traffic. We have three more friends lined up to bring food for us this week. And I declined several others offers, knowing we'd never get around to eating everything. I also thought of my friend who brought me books, and several others who offered to watch our kids and to pick them up and drop them off from school and activities.

Jeff turned to me and said, "Look at all the friends you have. See! No more complaining about San Diego!"

No, no more complaining. Ot at least a little less.

I am grateful. For those who showed they care. Who took time out of their busy lives to prepare nourishment for me and my family. Who want us to be well. And for those who want me to share my life with them.

A Strange Comfort

I've always been mindful that a single event can upend your life, but I always thought about them in catastrophic terms, like the loss of a child, detrimental crippling of your body, a horrific crime. I never imagined that my sister's decision to cease communicating with me more than seven years ago could continue to affect me the way it has. This act by one person, in a world of more than seven billion, has changed so much of how I see things, including myself, and how I face the world going forward. It's like the unraveling of a single knot that silently threatens the integrity of the whole quilt.

At several different points during those seven years, I made my mind up to accept it, even though I could make no sense of it. How do you comprehend that someone in your family would rather be rid of you and pretend you are dead, rather than talk through whatever the problems might be? Could I be that unreasonable, impenetrable, uncompromising that she should prefer silence over any combination of the million plus words that exist in the English language? 

But those questions no longer haunt me - not with the same intensity. And I no longer hope and anticipate and dread at the same time that her email address will suddenly pop up in my gmail inbox or that I'll see her phone number on my phone. I no longer plead with my parents to figure out a way to help us, bringing up examples of what others parents have done in similar situations in the books I've read, and no longer have to try to digest their words, What can we do? When has she ever listened to us? I no longer think about how much my children have already grown and how they change every day and how she will never know them as they were today, yesterday, the day before, and so on. I no longer fret over what to tell my children about her, preferring silence to do its job of keeping her nonexistent in their lives. 

I do not limp around like an injured animal. Instead, I rarely talk about it unless someone brings it up or innocently asks about my siblings. I no longer feel the sting of shame when I choose to reveal that she has estranged me. I do what I can to go about my business and live my life in all of its humdrum details. I load the laundry, post photos on Facebook, and dance with my children as we watch the parade at Disneyland. I get hair cuts, manicure my toenails, go on vacations, and chat with other moms at my son's school. 

I tell myself that I found a way to get a handle on the hurt, to tie it up once and for all and tuck it away, not to dismiss it, but at least to move it out of my immediate path.  

What I didn't expect was for it to continue to unravel year after year, left alone as it was. 

Even in the quiet of an ordinary day, I find myself transformed, often into a lesser version of myself. A squabble between my two children hurls me into crisis mode. A minor argument with my husband takes me to a dark place, where I wonder what is wrong with me, why am I not fit to handle any relationship, will no one put up with me? I no longer make friends so easily. I stay guarded, reluctant to put in the effort it takes. A cancelled dinner or a no show at a playdate feels like an affirmation of an uneasy rumbling deep in myself that I suspect must be really true, something others have always known about me.

Even happy or neutral moments stand unprotected. Nothing more than an innocent scene from a Frozen sing-along where I sat between my husband and my four year-old with his enormous bin of butter-drenched popcorn while my two year-old wiggled restlessly on my lap. On the enormous screen, the younger sister Anna protects her older sister Elsa from Hans' sword, playing out "her act of true love," and saves their kingdom forever. As Anna started to thaw, tears gushed out of my eyes, even as I sat very still to avoid calling attention to myself, and my mind flailed wildly, wondering what happened, how did we fail so terribly, why couldn't we find our way to a happy ending.

Or another evening in a resort tucked under the soaring red rocks of Sedona, where I had taken my parents on vacation. A conversation with my mother at the dining table under the hanging lamp while the kids sleep and Jeff and my dad huddle over their iPads. It is here where she lets slip her belief that her children are defective. In my sudden anger, I push her to explain, what is my defect? What is my defect? She blurts out, you are too headstrong, too narrow-minded to understand other people's weaknesses. Suddenly, I realize that she, who could find no way to help us even as I begged, holds me at fault for the breach between us because I'm the one she always described as tough, and my sister, delicate. Under that hanging lamp, I felt that thread further unravel.

Before, I would never have described myself as cynical or bitter. But now, if someone were to ask what bitterness tastes like, I would describe it in delicious detail.

The other day, I was reading an article about a child of murdered parents who was eventually adopted by the police officer who found her at the crime scene. Talking about the policewoman who became her mother, the child who is now a young woman said, "She taught me what it was like to hope and to truly trust; if ever in life I didn't think things would work out, I could trust her, and I would just put all my trust in her and she would get me through to the other side."

Reading that made me think about how I've undergone something akin to the reverse of this process. This estrangement from my sister has taken away much of what I had taken for granted: the belief that there are people in this world who will always be there for you, that your family is for keeps. I no longer have this faith that things will work out, and I feel anxious about putting all of my trust in a single person, even my husband.

In the midst of this pessimism, I opened a book two days ago and didn't put it down until I was done. Sonali Deraniyagala's Wave. It is a memoir by a woman who lost her two children, her husband, and her parents in the 2004 tsunami. I feared reading it after skimming the description, but downloaded it impulsively on my kindle and plunged in. I could not stop turning page after page, even as I read clenching my muscles and holding my breath. Often, I feared the upcoming sentences, afraid that they would feel too real. And many times, they did. Her boys, her husband, the author's despair, her terrible loss. She experienced the worst of my fears, and somehow she is still alive. She found a way to live. I could not understand how. How do you live after such a devastation?

One of her passages early in the book stayed with me. As she watched the tsunami approaching from her hotel, she ran holding her children's hands as her husband ran behind them. She did not stop to knock on her parents' door next to hers. She just ran. She had no time. Her job was to save her children. As I read it, I understood her. I did not judge her or wonder why she did not stop to try to save her parents. I understood.

Thinking about that helped me put some of this into context. The immediacy of my family.  

I also thought about the devastation I would feel if I lost my children and Jeff. Reading Sonali's book helped me realize the depth of that devastation. The estrangement from my sister in that context is really nothing. If I lost my children and Jeff, I wouldn't know how to live. And that thought has never occurred to me about my sister's estrangement. Realizing that is a strange comfort.

My So-Called So Cal Life

I am utterly failing at building a social life in San Diego. We've been here for three and a half years, and I don't feel like I have many friends in the area that I can count on. The kind of friend you'd keep no matter where you moved on. Three and a half years is a long time to not make friends.

During the first months here, I felt desperate to connect with others. So desperate that my desperation may even have seeped out. Once, Jeff and I were hanging out at a picturesque park right by the cliffs with our dog and our son when a woman, also with a canine and offsprings, stopped to chat with us. It turned out that she too was a lawyer with connection to a high tech company that Jeff was familiar with. On that ground, we were able to chat almost an hour and even exchanged email addresses as we parted. That evening, I made the fatal mistake of inviting her over to our house for a BBQ that weekend. Who in her right mind invites a stranger to her house after one conversation? And who in her right mind would accept an invitation to a stranger's house, especially with her kids in tow? I never heard back from her.

Since then, we've met people -- once we made the effort to venture out of our house, after carefully covering our eyes with sunglasses to let them adjust to the glaring sun -- at meetup groups, at my son's school, at local playgrounds. We have worked on honing our small-talk skills, being careful to banter with wit and share some revealing tidbits about ourselves while striking the careful balance not to reveal too much. I have made some effort to blend in with the locals, taking the time to blow-dry my hair in the morning and refraining from grimacing whenever talk of Botox or God surfaces. I pet their dogs, and I ask their children's age. I smile knowingly when someone mentions a TV show. I ooh and aah over designer purses and even the make of their cars. I volunteer at my son's school.

Sometimes, these efforts seem fruitful. We've been invited to dinners, to playgroups, to Easter egg hunts. We've chatted tete a tete with other parents and exchanged jokes with people across the table. I've even had ongoing text exchanges with some of them, and even befriended them on Facebook.

But on days like today, these seem like nothing other than white noise. Mere clutter to fill up the time, to mask my failure to make real connections that are so elusive even under the best of circumstances.

The conditions I am living in are far from ideal. I am an alien in Southern California. I grew up on the East Coast. I wear too much black. I have never had plastic surgery, unless you count the laser removal of some moles on my face. My boobs are my own. I don't own a bikini. I easily weigh 20 pounds more than the average local mom. I did not have children in my 20s. I don't like beer. I am not familiar with any sports teams. I don't watch TV. I am not blond. I place a premium on being genuine and reliable. I like to talk about books and current events.

When I complain to Jeff, he says, "Well, I don't have friends either, but I have you and the kids. That's all I need." Well, I need friends. Especially girlfriends that I can talk to, about things that deeply matter to me. I'm not sure if it's a function of having grown up as an immigrant in this country, but I also need to be around people who mirror some part of who I am, someone who by his or her sheer existence can serve as a validation of my own perception and experience. Maybe I'm asking for too much...

I've instead had the opposite experiences. At least once a week, I feel invisible. Sometimes, people seem to see through me, and I don't think it's just me being overly sensitive. I could be picking up my son at school, and people I know look past me to greet someone else behind me. The other day, I realized it's the way I sometimes look past landscapers mowing a lawn or construction workers hauling debris on a construction site. I don't really see them. They are mere fixtures in a scene, with no individual identity. They cannot serve me any purpose -- and cannot possibly have any connection to me.

Ever since my sister estranged me, I've become more insecure and needy. Every failure to connect with someone seems to validate my deep fear -- that I'm flawed, that I lack the skills to manage myself socially, that I'm not enough to merit someone else's time. That insecurity and fear make me frigid, socially unengaged. They bind me in an unhealthy circle of not even wanting to reach out, to bother to try to connect with others. A cranky voice in the back of my mind wonders what the point is anyway.

We've talked about moving back to San Francisco -- where I felt so much at home, where I had many treasured friends. But when we visit, I know it's no longer our home. Our friends have moved on with their lives. The schools suck. The restaurants don't have high chairs. Everyone moves to Marin or to the East or South Bay anyway -- and what's the point of living in a more expensive suburb where you have to drive two hours to visit friends?

The other day, I chatted with a dad in my daughter's gymnastics class. A large African-American man who told me that he grew up as an orphan, a ward of three different states. Despite all that, he managed to put himself through college and went to law school, and worked at a corporate law firm in New York before moving to San Diego not too long ago. He told me that most of the kids he had known growing up are now either dead or incarcerated. I had seen him before, chatting and laughing with the other moms in the class. Watching him made me wonder how he could fit in so well when I seem to be struggling so much.

I don't have a solution, but I do want to smack the self-pity out of myself. To just buck up and figure it out. Maybe I just need to make myself more agreeable. Or less rigid. Or have a better sense of humor. Or turn blond.

If all fails, I guess we can start importing some friends down here.

I know it's not as bleak - or as black and white as I've painted it to be. There are people I can call, people I can grab a drink with. People who will respond if I needed help. People with good hearts and warm intentions. But do they get me, and do I get them? Here, at this stage of my life, there are so many variables at play. I'm not exposed to the same demographics as I was when I met people through work or school. I'm now a mom, and I don't have the time to nurture friendships as I once had. The moms I am meeting are in the same boat. You are busy, they are busy. They work. They don't have the same aged children as you do, or if they do, their children are overly aggressive toward yours. Neither of you has time to nurture your interests the way you used to. It's hard to find the time to sit down and talk when you spend all your time chasing after your two year old. Your friendships can only go so far talking about parenting techniques. I know all that. But knowing doesn't change your reality -- or make the shortcomings more palatable.

But I do remind myself that it took me four years to feel settled when I first moved to San Francisco. That is some comfort. And it takes time to build depth in any relationship. Maybe it's patience I need to nurture -- and some self-confidence. And to remind myself that I survived relocations to New York, Houston, Chicago, D.C., and San Francisco, many on my own. Could this one be that much worse?

Second-Guessing

These days, my impatience seem to have reached a new level. It takes very little for me to get frustrated with whatever I am doing, too quick to fall into despair. Today, I was trying to teach my four year old how to spell some rhyming words. I first tried to make it fun. "Hey, do you want to learn how to spell Bat Man?", pointing to his Bat Man shirt. "Yeah!" was his enthusiastic response. So we did BAT MAN, then CAT, then SAT. Then he lost interest. "What other words can you think of that rhyme with BAT and CAT and SAT?" "I don't know" was his response. After a bit of cajoling and dropping some obvious hints, I found myself threatening. "Ok, then, no Lego Movie if we don't do this." Then it soon frittered to, "Fine, let's just finish this." We hurried through the next few words and then I found myself saying, "Go do whatever you want."

Through the process, I heard the coach in myself admonishing. Don't ruin it. Don't ruin it for him. Don't make this a negative process. Don't make negative associations for him. Help him love learning. Keep this fun.

But the voice that prevailed was the voice of dejection. The voice of giving up. It's the voice that takes over as you are losing the race, even as you resist its power. The one that says, "You suck."

I've been realizing over the past several months that parenting requires a certain amount of faith. The faith in the value of family. The faith that things work out in the end. The faith that all this is worth it. The faith that I can do this.

It's not something I thought of before. These are things that I took for granted -- that I would be a part of a loving family, that I would be a positive influence on my children, that things would work out if I just tried my best.

But strange things happen when you've been estranged by members of your own family. Bit by bit, the things you've always taken for granted no longer seem so obvious. You start to second guess everything that you've ever said, ever done. You scrutinize yourself through different sets of eyes and find yourself less worthy, less likable. You find yourself less powerful, less invincible.

The threat of failure lingers over you. You've already failed. You've screwed up one of the most fundamental relationships in your life. So majorly. Who's to say you're equipped to handle others? You are that person that others -- ones supposedly closest to you -- felt the need to banish. The one who could not be tolerated. The one who had to be thrown away.

It does a number on you, even as you resist thinking along those lines. You wonder about all your past actions. All the effort you undertook in the past to make things work. And how futile they turned out to be. Or damaging. And how all your good intentions fell so short. It makes you second-guess, when you should simply be chugging along, giving it your best.

I'm using this space to remind myself of all that is in my power. All that I can control. To remind myself that I am not all that rotten. I know it, but these days, when I fall short, I have fewer people to reassure me -- and too many reminders to suggest otherwise.

Giving Up

For several months, I had been seized by a lingering headache. A dull throbbing, as if someone put a vice on my temples, tightening it ever so slightly. The other day, I realized that I've been having an ongoing dialogue with my sister in my head, going over snippets of what I could remember of our arguments, replaying her complaints, trying to decipher what she was saying, trying to see them from a new angle. Sometimes, I'm pleading with her, other times trying to reason, and then on other occasions, screaming and cursing her out. Depending on what's going on in my head, I'm either hopeful, resigned, or angry. And when I'm angry, the anger seethes out. And then the tears fall, whether I'm with Jeff, my kids, or some random stranger.

I realized that I've been doing this for the past seven years, ever since she estranged me. Trying to find some way to open a channel of communication. Trying to find my way out of this Kafka-esque maze, trying to shake the surreal out of my reality. Last month, I went to New York after avoiding it for three years, reluctant to go back and be hit in the face with our broken family, reluctant to put my parents in the awkward position of dealing with their daughters in separate transactions, as if we were hostile animals to be kept in separate cages. I finally decided to return, because I no longer had my children's ages as an excuse for not traveling long distance, because I no longer wanted to live in avoidance.

We decided to tack it on after my college reunion in Chicago to avoid making two trips to the East Coast. Soon after we arrived in New York, I found out that my sister's wedding at City Hall was scheduled to be held that week. What crappy planning on our part. How worse could our timing have been?

It turned out to be a strange week, with me encouraging my mom to wear a dress, not trousers, to the wedding and urging her not to show up empty handed, even if she already gave them a big fat check. Then shopping with my mom to help her buy a dress for the event, helping her pick out a wedding present, a card, wrapping paper. Then driving her back to Rite Aid because the wrapping paper turned out to be clear cellophane instead of silver lining. Listening to my parents talk through the logistics of the day, figuring out which train to take to the city. Me, always the dutiful daughter, offering to drive them to the train station so that they wouldn't have to walk blocks in their get up from the only lot that wasn't filled by mid-morning. Watching Jeff drive off with them in my place to go to the train station so that I could avoid making a scene in front of them with my mom's makeup all done. Standing next to my mother as she talks to my sister on the phone listening to her explain why she can't come out to Long Island to meet us for dinner even though Jeff and I are visiting with our kids.

In the midst of all this, I found myself seething at my parents. When all this started, I had begged them to help me somehow. To help us with this breach. To try to find some way to help us resolve this. But they claimed to be powerless. When does she ever listen to us, they said. What can we do? 

I found myself screaming at them. You're the parents. Show some leadership. Other parents figure out a way to help. Why can't you! Why are you so passive? When have I ever asked you to help me before? I'm so angry at you, so angry. 

My parents advised that's how things are sometimes. You grow older, you grow apart. You now have your own family to worry about. Siblings can't stay close when you have your own lives. 

I was disgusted by their sense of fatalism, their passivity. I argued with them and tried to convince them of their power, their ability to persuade, to lead. To keep the family together.

I found myself vowing never to come back. It's too hard, I told my mom. It hurts too much.

The rest of the visit, however, was amazingly pleasant, despite all this. We arrived to find the house immaculate and stocked with all things organic, including bags of cherries, pints of blueberries and raspberries, cereal, milk, meat, and even the bath and hand soap, this from my parents who had previously stepped into their local Whole Foods once. They splurged the kids with new gifts of toys and mounds of snacks. And they had rounded up all the toys they could find remaining from our childhood days.

Most mornings, we packed a huge bag of snacks and piled into our rental minivan, where my mom sat next to our son, and my dad next to my daughter (who found it amusing to wave at them periodically during the drive when she wasn't napping). We spent the days as tourists with my parents, visiting the Museum of Natural History, the Long Island Children's Museum, the Cradle of Aviation Museum. Taking a cruise around the Statue of Liberty. My children rode a carousel with my parents, who said they might as well since when are they going to have another opportunity. My mom first insisted on riding the horse that pumped up and down, but as the whirl of the power started, she jumped off and plopped next to my dad on the fixed bench. We spent two mornings at a driving range where our son played putt putt golf with my parents, even though the grounds were sopping wet from rain the prior day. After, they yelled at the guy working on the golf course to get the train out, their grandkids wanted a ride. The guy ran over to some rusty shed and came out creaking in a 4 car train, dutifully blowing the horn to let the kids know that the train had arrived. We all then piled on and sat in that damn thing as the guy drove us over a rubbled path and circled the parking lot twice. The remaining mornings, we spent with our kids giggling in a kiddie pool in my parents' backyard while Jeff menaced with the water hose.

Then, every day, just hours after we had stuffed ourselves with a full breakfast, they herded us to a restaurant where they ordered dishes upon dishes, encouraging us to eat, heaping food on our kids' plates. When they saw how well our son ate at their favorite Korean BBQ place, they made plans to return three days later. Then after we had stuffed ourselves, they had us pull over at a Korean grocery or Whole Foods so that we could pick up more food. And as we drove home, my dad pointed out to my three and half year old son every single golf driving range or course on which he had played.

As our visit unfolded, I found myself exhausted. But with a slightly different perspective.

I started to realize that it's time to give up hope. To give up hope of having a cohesive family. To give up hope of reconciling. To give up some romantic version of the Waltons that we'll never be. When I found out about my sister's wedding, I realized that a part of me had been holding out for an invitation to the wedding, because my mom had told me late last year that she planned to invite me. How foolish I had been to hope for some reconciliation after all these years. Let's face it. When someone hasn't talked to you in seven years, you aren't getting a damn invitation to her wedding. And it's time to face that. We're never going to reconcile. Not after seven years.

When someone refuses to talk to you for seven years, nothing can change. They are not willing to entertain any new set of facts, any new piece of information to inform their actions. They don't want to see it through a new perspective. They have already made up their minds. They have closed themselves off. It's so obvious now, but I don't know why I didn't see that before.  

Even if I had anything new to say, I don't even think it'll make a difference. For most of our adult lives, I had been such a good sister to her. I don't think she would deny it. I always thought of her and always included her in my life. I can't remember a single close friend of mine that I didn't introduce her to. I remember her calling me when she was in high school, needing help convincing my parents to let her go to her choice of college. And I did as requested, talking to my parents for hours on the phone, doing all I could to convince them. I remember keeping her boyfriends secret from my parents and always being available to listen to her talk about the guys in her life, her work situation, her friends, her books. I always invited her out to visit me wherever I lived, sometimes her and her friend, paying for her plane tickets and whatever expenses she incurred during her visit. I remember going out to North Carolina to help her move, even getting stung by a bee in the eye during the process, and doing that again when she was living in New York. I remember taking her on a trip to the Yosemite, to LA, to Paris, paying for all of the expenses, the tickets, figuring out our itinerary for the whole week. I remember always buying her a souvenir first before even buying my own whenever I went away on a trip. I remember helping her move in with me in San Francisco, buying her ticket, clearing out a room for her, buying her new furniture, even when I was strained with my new mortgage in my new house, and throwing her a brunch so that she could meet all of my friends.

Despite all that, she didn't see any point in giving me the benefit of the doubt. Of taking pause before kicking me to the curb. Not that I think I should get a free pass. No, but I should have had some reserve of goodwill to at least warrant a second chance before exile. But it made no difference. So why should anything I do in the future make any difference?

What hurts the most is that she gave me no room to be a human being, blind to my own flaws. And that she cut off any hope of me learning from her, growing from our tensions, gaining a new perspective as a result. I remember her complaining that I demeaned her by ordering for her in the restaurants when we ate out. And now I look back and think it so strange that I did that. Why did I do that? So strange. But maybe not so strange in a family where I order for my parents at every restaurant. But whatever the reason, she gave no latitude for me to be blind to my own actions, to have the generosity to accept that I may have some human flaws that I could one day overcome.

But it hardly matters now. That reconciliation is never going to happen. I see that now. I told my parents this time. I told them my expectation that I will not see her until one of their funerals. Their eyes widened but they nodded along.

But I'm also realizing that we could be a family without my sister. Me, with my kids and Jeff, and my parents. We could still be a family. And I don't have to wedge my sister in the middle to make us cohesive. We could still be a family with just us, without her.

I let this problem with my sister get in the way of my relationship with my parents. Because I blamed them. I blamed them for not being able to help us. I thought they had failed in one of their basic functions as a parent. I also blamed them for us getting into this predicament in the first place. For putting me in the role of the domestic taskmaster while they worked 16 hour days. For making me my sister's keeper. For using me as a conduit to speak to her when they couldn't figure out a way to connect with her directly. For using me to influence her when they abandoned their own powers. But my dad is in his 70s now, my mom in her late 60s. There's too little time left to quarrel.

After our plane landed in San Diego, I called my parents to let them know that we had arrived. My mom answered. After the initial greetings, she said, "I wish we could come out to visit you once a year and you could come out to New York once a year." I found my responding, "Maybe, Mom. Maybe..."

In Honor of Sibling Day

When we were planning our family, Jeff and I never considered stopping after one. We always wanted to have at least two children (although, much to Jeff's horror, I initially floated the idea of going for four.) The reason was partly selfish. We didn't want to get stuck playing Legos with our kid until he left for college. But we also considered all the benefits siblings can provide each other. Like having a partner for Ring Around the Rosie. And having someone who will eat the rest of the mashed sweet potatoes (which T always does) instead of having countless Earth's Best jars accumulate in the fridge. And making up some silly song for his sister to make her giggle even though she has no idea what he's saying. And giving each other a little smooch when the other falls. We wanted our children to be there for each other when life's hardships inevitably surface. We wanted to find a way for them not to feel so alone in this world. To feel like there is always someone who has your back, who is sitting with you in your corner, even when Jeff and I are no longer around.

I've always been glad not to be an only child. I think I would have hated it. I pitied some of my friends who had no siblings. So many of them seemed lonely. And some seemed overly self-involved. And a few others seemed to have narrower exposure to the world, which I attributed to them not having as many influences within the family. Not all my only child friends were like that, of course, and I also have some perfectly well adjusted friends who have no siblings. But even they have to carry more burden than I would prefer in looking out for their parents and worrying about their well being as they age.

I know I learned a lot from my siblings. Even from my brother's heavy metal music, which I found painful to listen to at ear drum breaking volume. My sister introduced me to a lot of literature and ways of seing things. And we used to talk so much about our family issues -- and everything else. I miss that.

Yesterday morning, I saw a couple of posts on Facebook about Sibling Day when I first woke up, and I found myself bawling when I was later using the bathroom. Our family seems like such a failure these days, and I'm not sure why that is. Why our family fell apart when others manage to hold theirs together. It feels like the biggest failure in my life. It colors everything, making all else feel somewhat hopeless. Whenever Jeff and I have an argument, even the most trivial, I find myself saying, "Well, this is going to shit like everything else." I feel pessimistic and flawed, as if it is all my fault. As if I really don't have any skills in managing human relationships. I also feel alone in this world in an existential sense, in a way I've never felt before, even though I have a wonderful family of my own.

I've been reading about sibling strife to understand better why we have so much in my family. The book I recently finished profiles 60 different sets of sibling of different backgrounds and ages. I'm amazed to see how varied the specific disputes can be and yet, when it comes down to it, it seems there is just a handful of root causes of sibling friction.

I've heard many times that when siblings don't get along -- not just fight now and then, but are antagonistic to each other -- often, the deep down root of the conflict is not with each other but really with the parents. In other words, a sibling does not dislike his or her sibling because he/she is a fundamentally bad person. Rather, the sibling is angry or grieved about some sense of unfairness at the parents' treatment of the children. For example, when a parent favors one child over others, the unfavored child expresses anger at the favored child, but it is really the parent whose behavior should be addressed.

This is probably part of the problem in my own case. Not to blame the parents. I think most parents do what they can, what they believe to be right. And I know my parents had no bad intentions. But like most people, they have their blind spots, their unquestioned cultural norms, their own weaknesses and needs. And they tend to be passive more than proactive, and for large segments of our childhood, they didn't have the time to be actively engaged in our lives. I think a lot of the problems in our family stems from a combination of these factors.

I also think sibling relationships need a lot of help to follow the right course. I see it in my own children. They have so much affection to share, but at the same time, there is inherent competition for attention and control. Without some intervention from me and Jeff, I don't know whether my children could have a healthy relationship. We have to set limits and teach them how to treat each other -- and to respect each other. And to see each other as individuals, not just as the younger or older sibling. There is an inherent imbalance of power, and I make an effort to help our older child be sensitive to that. I also try to teach them to value having a cohesive family. I tell T, "Do you know that you and S are going to be such good friends? When she learns to talk, you can talk to her about anything and everything. You guys will have so much fun together!"

I'm not trying to say that I am blameless in my fallouts with my own siblings. I know we've all done things we regret -- and wish that we could have found ways to conduct ourselves more maturely and with more foresight. But severing a family relationship is such a drastic act, and I can't help but wonder if the tensions in our relationships didn't result from a pattern of unhealthy behavior that should have been addressed along the way. If the relationship wasn't already at a breaking point.

I thought reading about other siblings would make me reflect further about my situation. It has to a degree, but it has also had this unexpected effect of making me want to wash my hands of the whole thing. Seeing others persistently engage in such painful and noxious battles makes me want to disengage. When I read about these other siblings, I wanted to tell them, just move on! Live your life. Why keep going back for more?

Yeah, good advice for myself. I'm starting to realize that there is nothing you really can do when someone in your family cuts you off. You can mourn the situation, but you can't change their minds -- not unilaterally. And I think the willingness to throw away a relationship may reflect the reality that the relationship was unhealthy to begin with -- and maybe the one throwing away the relationship wanted to find a way to come out from under the burdens of the relationship. That for them, the burdens outweighed any benefits.

And I can see that a little more objectively now, without feeling so defensive. And understanding that the relationship may not have entirely been about me but also about the dynamics of our family or my sibling's sense of self helps me to understand that maybe some separation is for the best. Because that person no longer wants to continue to engage in that role in the family. Or needs to affirm herself, to say, "I'm worthy of more than that. You can't treat me like that." Or no longer wants to be in the shadows of another, to see herself in comparison with her sibling. Or maybe a separation from the sibling somehow helps them salvage the direct relationship with the parent somehow, although I'm not sure why it works like that.

I wonder at what age we start to see ourselves through our own eyes. When do we stop viewing ourselves through our parents' eyes and judge ourselves to be inadequate? When do we stop being the one who was loved less? The one who didn't receive the kind of approval we felt we deserved? When do we stop competing against each other? When do we stop re-living the childhood wrongs we feel we suffered at the hands of our sibling? And when do we recognize childhood acts for what they were -- as immature behavior of children with underdeveloped judgment?

It's amazing that you can live the remaining 60-80% of your life stuck in the mold set by those first 18 years. Or fighting it. Or bitterly engaged in repudiating it. And still feeling angry, or deprived, or cheated.

I think the only thing you can do is to find a way to achieve your own happiness. It sounds so trite, but it's not really. You have to find a way to get your emotional needs met -- and to even get to that stage, you have to work on yourself and figure out what your emotional needs are. You have to find a way to figure yourself out -- and a way to be honest with yourself. I don't think you can have a healthy relationship with others unless you're happy with yourself -- and I know I need to work on that to protect my relationships with my own family.

I'm not sure where I am on that road, but I know I have a long way to go. There are things about myself that I don't even know I don't know. I have so many blind spots about myself. But thinking about this makes me feel somewhat liberated -- and helps me start to pull my head out of the muddle.

So for all of you out there with healthy sibling relationships, I envy you -- and I toast you. I hope you took note of the day that just passed and made a point to celebrate it in some way, however small.