Dear Cat:

I thought about you at dinner last evening as the song “the year of the Cat” was playing (I don’t know if that line is the title of the song).

Glad you are learning from our communication. I am learning too.

I am not an administrator here but a member, like you. An active member, posting a whole lot, yet a member, not an administrator, a moderator, an employee.

Having read your recent post this early morning I understand your interaction with your sister better. What she wants from you is an attentive, empathetic audience to her misery. She doesn’t want your advice, your thoughts. She will let you advise her for the purpose of hearing your voice, hearing your empathy. Not for the purpose of hearing what you have to say.

I’ve done that, was there for someone’s misery the way she (my mother) wanted, and it harmed me immensely and… there was always more misery on her part to display to me, always more.

In light of my better understanding, better not give her advice anymore. I made the same decision with my sister some time ago. No advice. At first it was hard but it is as easy as can be now. I have no desire to give her advice, none whatsoever. I understand the total futility of it.

I can write more about the issue of how we (true to me, maybe for you too) think that our sisters are like us because they were there too, in the same household we grew up in, but in reality, like you wrote, sisters are often opposites.

Regarding your parents having told you that they loved you and did their best, I used to be confused by this until I replaced love with value. My mother valued me as a thing, not as a person. So she loved me like a person loves a thing, sometimes be nice to the thing, at other times hurt the thing, real bad.

anita