Posted by pegasus on October 8, 2007, at 11:04:45
I've been working at a hospice recently, and it's made me really think about some of the people in my life with whom I have unfinished business. I decided to try to write a letter to my sister. Not sure if I'd ever send it, but I thought it would be useful to see what came out when I tried to work through what felt like unfinished stuff that I wanted to communicate.
I have a pretty entangled relationship with her. We were super close as kids (just one year apart), which was both good and bad. As adults we've drifted apart and now I only see her once a year (if that) and we almost never talk on the phone. Yet, she still feels like home to me. I think she parented me more than my parents did in some ways. In the sense that she paid more attention to me than they did. Since she was only a year or so older, that wasn't necessarily a good thing. I mean, she was pretty unskilled, and unintentional about it. So, I struggle a lot with that as an adult. Not her fault, but it's still there, you know?
So, trying to write this letter is just so . . . hard. I wanted to tell her how important she is to me, but I also have a lot of anger which is hard to keep out of it. And then on the other hand, I really understand why she would have done the things she did, so then I question my anger, and end up all tangled in various confusing emotions and thoughts. And how much, or which parts, of this is worth trying to put into words directed toward her? I'm starting to wonder whether this is a good idea after all.
Have any of you done this and had it be a beneficial thing for you? Maybe it's easier with a less ambiguous relationship? Maybe I need to write two letters, from the loving and the angry perspectives.
peg
poster:pegasus
thread:787855
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070929/msgs/787855.html