I’ve done pretty well with keeping an even keel this week, keeping my head above water, maintaining a glass half-full attitude, choose your cliche. I’ve actually been proud of myself for not collapsing in a heap. I was through a root canal procedure on Monday that was the grand finale following over two weeks of suffering with a bad toothache. The pain following the procedure that day was comparable to the pain I’ve had following a tooth extraction. That tooth is still uncomfortable but not nearly as much now. I’m assuming it will soon pass.

On Tuesday, family tensions with the bunch “out east” cranked up again. I’m estranged from my three half-brothers, my father’s sons. I haven’t seen the two older ones since Christmas of 1991 and the third one since November 1995. I have, however, maintained a relationship with my half-sister over the years.

Apparently, this blog has created an upset with certain family members. The catalyst, I believe, is one of the posts I made around the time my 17-year-old grandnephew was shot and killed in September. He was the grandson of one of these brothers I haven’t seen since 1991. I said something that perhaps I shouldn’t have on what was technically a public post, although my blog has never attracted much attention at all. I’ve had my husband, maybe a couple of family members, and a couple of friends check in on it to see what I’m up to from time to time. I have never deluded myself into thinking that anyone else was remotely interested in anything I had to say, and my words were certainly NOT reaching “the whole world,” not like the NBC Nightly News from Rockefeller Center in New York City.

Well, my mention of my grandnephew attracted a few folks to my blog because they were “googling” his name and my blog came up on the search engine. I received a comment from a young woman who identified herself as his girlfriend. Not too long ago, I received a comment from someone who identified herself as his mother’s best friend. (The murdered boy’s mother is my niece, my brother’s daughter.) I sent her a personal reply to the email address she provided when she left her blog comment.

I suppose it may have been this person who printed a copy of the post she responded to and gave it to my brother, saying she thought he needed to know what I had said. He apparently was very upset and irrate. His wife got on the phone and started calling family members.

Ironically, I wasn’t one of the people who was called. Had I been, I would have sincerely apologized for any upset my sentiments and musings had caused, the post would have been removed from circulation (which it has been), and that could have been the end of it, right then and there. But I didn’t know anything about it for probably close to two weeks after the phone calls started out East, and I finally heard about it from someone other than my brother. After all, juicy stuff like that travels fast, just like a good case of diarrhea! The person I finally heard it from thought that I should know — and rightly so! — what was going on out there.

The consequence now is that one family member, not in the best frame of mind for quite awhile — is on a rant against me. I have become a dumping ground for a lot of anger and blame that s/he harbors, and this became a convenient outlet. (I was called a “hateful person” for the first time in my life this week.) This family member doesn’t have a close relationship with my brother and sister-in-law who initiated the phone calls, so other than this being a handy thing to get worked up about, there is no other personal investment in this. S/he hates me now, though, and told me never to contact him/her again.

Another brother — the Third Guy — pumped my sister for information Christmas morning, and she was trying her best to stay out of it and remain the neutral party. He wanted to get in her face about that. And then he and my sister’s 41-year-old son started cranking up about it in the kitchen. On Christmas morning. What a great atmosphere on a holiday morning that is suppose to be pleasant family time.

So, now I have a gaggle of family members chewing and worrying on bits and pieces of this, most of them not having any semblance of the facts, and I’m sure what little fact was originally in the mix has been severely distorted with each gossip and bitch session. I’m the Evil Stepsister, the family monster, the pariah. You think I’m kidding? The brother who is the grandfather of the deceased teenager ordered my sister not to tell me anything about them. She’s not suppose to open her mouth about anything having to do with them! This is my brother. We are related by blood. We have relatives in common. We share the same father, and I am still a part of that family whether my brother(s) likes it or not. And my sister has the right to talk to me anytime she wants to about anything she wants to without his or anyone else’s permission to do so.

I just sit here and shake my head because this is all so absurd. This situation could have been remedied with a phone call from the injured party to the offending party, and the matter would have been taken care of. No one else needed to get all agitated and worked up about it. Now, everyone in that loop of the family is buzzing about it and twisting it and turning it into a debacle. Family is pitted against family. Great. That’s just what we all needed. Happy holidays.

So, Christmas came and went. As I said in my previous post, Christmas Eve was a wonderful time with my Chosen Family. I am blessed to have them. I realize that more and more all the time.

I went to work the day after Christmas. It was not a holiday where I work. Someone had to be there. It really was a stupid day to have to work, and my mind wasn’t there at all. I’ve been very distracted lately, and it’s been hard to focus on work.

Last night, it just seemed to hit me. I felt the exhaustion, the letdown, the feeling of sadness bordering on tears. I just wanted to crawl in bed and stay there. I did stay there until 10:50 this morning and then sat in my pj’s until 1:00. I spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch with a book. May spend the day that way tomorrow, too!