Sorting Out A Few Things

I have always been a live-and-let live person, especially where it concerns my sister, whom I have seen rarely once we were out of college. I have never thought about how she might be living her life. My own has always been plenty for me to handle.

I have always liked and admired the homes that Siss has created for herself, except for the smoky dungeon she shared with The Rag before the breakup. That was horrible, but I love the little house she has in New Providence, with its jewel-toned furniture, comfy back porch, and procession of clopping horses going by. She also had a cute place in Easton, PA. It was a large apartment that covered the second story of an older house, and I remember visiting her there when I was still in undergraduate school and she was newly married (for the first time). My boyfriend (who later became my first husband) and I stopped at a roadside stand and bought a gift to take along to Siss' place; an enormous milk-fed pumpkin that easily measured three feet in diameter. We suggested that they coat it with polyurethane and use it as a cute chair or footstool. None of the four of us knew anything about milk-fed pumpkins, what was inside them, or how all that milk might affect the process of decay. About two weeks later, Siss called me at school to inform me that she had sat down on the pumpkin, only to have it turn to mush and implode beneath her, at the same time releasing a noxious liquid in great quantity. This liquid saturated her new wool area rug, made its way across the kitchen, and flowed out the back door and down the stairs to visit the neighbors, who were also her landlords. Oops!

Siss and this same husband, who was an urban planner, later bought a cute little house in Moorestown, New Jersey, right across the bridge from Philadelphia. Siss fixed this one up beautifully, too. I always envied her ability to "nest". She did it well.

At this time I was living in New York City and had married the boyfriend from the pumpkin disaster. He and I both had begun Orgone therapy with the wonderful Dr. Schwartzman, whose office was in Philadelphia. Each week, we would get home to Brooklyn from working/dancing in Manhattan, change clothes, and leave for Philly. We ate convenient-store ham sandwiches while we gassed up on the way, and got to Philly for our back-to-back 8PM and 9PM therapy appointments. After therapy, we stopped at Dunkin Donuts for a "bucket of munchkins" and headed for Moorestown and that cute little house where my sister and her husband lived. We shared the munchkins, which were doughnut holes in several flavors, among the four of us before we headed back to Brooklyn at 2 or 3 in the morning. This went on for years, until Siss got divorced and the house was sold.

Back to the point. I am very live-and-let-live. I never loved and then hated Siss. I never admired and then vilified her way of life. I never even noticed the way she dressed or styled her hair. I never commented on her life-choices.

Maybe all this going with the flow left me open to be loved/hated and admired/vilified by her. I learned some very valuable things about the human condition while I was in therapy. One of those things is that people often lash out at others who have what they themselves want but are too afraid to reach for. This is an emotional plague reaction. It is a hatred of the life and happiness in someone else because of a fear of reaching for that life and happiness.

What does this have to do with all those cute little houses and all that nesting? Well, Siss always wanted a more adventurous and "artistic" way of life. She wanted to be a writer, and actually got a degree in English, but later gave up an editorial position to go back to nursing school. I am living in a converted warehouse on an organic farm in the middle of a big city, surrounded by museums and galleries and theatres. I achieved my dream of becoming a dancer, and that is how I make my living. She reveled in this way of life, loved visiting the warehouse, having Thanksgiving dinner at the local Vietnamese restaurant, going to the butterfly garden at the Natural Science Museum. Then, when I got flooded, she turned all moralistic and said, "it wouldn't be ME living that way"! And....when Hurricane Ike hit Houston and made national news, she never even called me. All part of the old "I told you so". You know, I would never have lived in the cozy little places she has inhabited, but the important thing is that I would never have thought of saying this to her. We all have the right to live the way we want to live, and the way that makes us comfortable.

What did I want to sort out here? Just one very basic thing that separates me and Siss. I believe in living my life exactly as I please as long as I hurt no one else. I also believe that I do not have the right to comment on how anyone else lives his/her life unless I am asked. Siss, on the other hand, feels free to sling off at me about my life, and it is always disguised as "what is best for me". This disguise is another dead giveaway that the emotional plague is at work. Siss has become very moralistic and self-righteous where I am concerned ("it wouldn't be ME living that way"). I should really say "had become", because there is no present tense for us any more.