Growing up, it fell to me to manage family members' alternate realities. Individually, their alternate realities were in conflict not only with each other, but also with my own. Jim and Mom insisted that their alternate realities were true. Janet and Dad would occasionally impose their realities on me and never challenged Jim's and Mom's realities in healthy ways. There was screaming and yelling and leaving the house for brief instances. I didn't see any behaviors that I wanted to adopt.
Mom and Dad never talked about divorce, but it was on our minds. I remember thinking about and talking over with Jim who we would like to stay with in the case of divorce. There many considerations for and against both parents.
I won exactly one argument with Mom. And until I was able to open his eyes to very difficult truths in the last months of his life, I hadn't won any arguments with Jim.
Mom
Mom was someone who will argue with you that the sky is green instead of blue, then try to convince you that she always said it was blue. I remember forming this description when I was in 5th or 6th grade. It took me much longer to learn how not to argue with her.
Shortly after it won multiple awards (1973ish), Mom gifted me with a copy of the book Freak Friday. She was so proud of her gift choice. I hated the book, the story didn't make any sense to me. I never finished it, it lurked on my book shelves for decades. It may still be hiding somewhere. Mom argued that it was a good book because it had won so many awards and was a best seller and I should really like it. I heard, "You're absolutely wrong to not like this masterpiece". To her credit, I do think she read and liked it. Maybe she thought it would help me embrace her reality.
When I was a young adult - in my pre Al-Anon days, most arguments ended with, "I don't need to listen to you because I know exactly what you're going to say". That made me feel so unnecessary. One of my parents called me unnecessary - what a blow to a young woman who had been taught (by this same parent, no less) that she should have a purpose-filled life. Al-Anon taught me to cut arguments short by not engaging. I learned to laugh when things were escalating. I'd say things like, "This is a silly thing to argue about," (usually true, but useful even when it wasn't). Mom would laugh along and our relationship healed. I never got over being told I was unnecessary.
I still don't understand why Mom and I had to have an argument over how the Earth circles the sun and rotates on a tilted axis so that days shorten and lengthen in the Northern and Southern hemispheres and have the same length year round at the equator. It was late fall and we were trying to sort out time zones and daylight savings time on our flight to Quito for our trip to the Galapagos. When she challenged my assertion that the equator didn't need daylight savings time, I was dumbfounded. I thought about all those trips to the natural science museum in Dayton - so many lovely trips. I thought about the solar system models she helped us with. How did this knowledge fall out of her brain? On the airplane, our neighbors were starting to notice our conversation. I said something like, 'Let's talk about something else, we can pick this up later'. (This before smart phones and ubiquitous internet access.) The following spring, Mom sent me a newspaper clipping explaining daylight savings time. On it she wrote: "You were right." I still have the clipping. It is one of my greatest treasures. That was in the spring of 2008; she passed in June.
Jim
When we played, when we did anything, Jim was always in charge. He was 2 yrs older than me. He named the stuffed animals and directed their activity, ignoring my suggestions and small rebellions in our made-up game of "Play, Play, Play, Play". He smashed my pristine Hot Wheels into his beaters. He was ALWAYS Batman, I was ALWAYS Robin. I followed him as we 'climbed up buildings' with pretend ropes. (The original TV show was so campy, even as young children we knew that when they were 'climbing up' the side of buildings, they were filmed walking on a flat surface). When he learned to drive, his way was the best way - even when it included unintentional detours. If I thought he should turn left, he turned right. When we both had our licenses, he drove. On the rare occasion I drove, he still controlled the radio and the temperature while 'coaching' me to be a better driver. He and Mom are behind the anxiety I feel when I drive with passengers. I have a very low tolerance for back-seat drivers.
Mom and Dad made fun of me for my "He's looking at me / Stop looking at me!" complaints. I read the mean thoughts behind those eyes. They never saw what I felt. I am still the butt of this particular family joke.
Jim, like Dad, mumbled all the time. He would often get angry at me when he had to repeat himself until I understood what he saying. With others, he would show frustration or give up - or often not talk at all. With me he would get visibly angry, blaming me for not listening. While Jim was in the hospital recovering from his first stroke, several people from church were visiting. I was there too. The speech therapist came in and gave a progress report, "He can mumble, and it's often hard to distinguish individual words". I replied, "He's a mumbler. What your describing sounds very close to his base-line." The other visitors nodded in agreement. The therapist thanked us for this useful information.
When I moved back to Dayton in 2015, Jim's car didn't run well. Much of the time, it didn't run at all. He got an IT contracting job at the airport. For several weeks, he took the bus to work and I picked him up in the evening and drove him home. Since he didn't have transportation of his own, we would run his errands on the way home and sometimes we'd have dinner together. One evening we were driving on the Interstate and nearing the exit that led to our dinner spot. I was tired, he was grumpy. He mumbled something and I asked him to repeat it. He replied, "I was reminding you not to take a U-ie (U-turn)". My confusion was evident. He yelled, reminding me of a time when I first moved back to Dayton (several months previous) that - at the same exit - I had gotten in the wrong lane and had to make a U-turn to correct my error. Had it not been rush hour on the interstate, I think I would have stopped and kicked him out of the car. We stopped at Smashburger and ate at different tables. When I was calm enough, I told him he had no right to yell at me - ever. The stop for groceries was postponed and I drove him home.
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