Dear cali sister:

getting a flu shot fits with my stated #1 priority: your physical health and safety. Right next to this first priority is your job- for the paycheck, for it keeping you occupied and for how it makes you feel for doing a great job: “I am a great mentor for them….It feels good that I am able to mentor people although I am going through s much on my own. It shows growth and the ability to function”-

– trust in your ability to function in tough times is priceless.

Regarding your dog, it should be easy to remove your inaccurate projection into him because, like you wrote, he “is just happy baseline”. Unlike the child that you were, able to use a rich vocabulary of words and to imagine in great detail, he doesn’t. So when he is alone at home, he doesn’t think things like: maybe I am not a good-enough dog, and this is why cali sister is not with me! He doesn’t think that. He doesn’t imagine, or day dream of living in another home where he has you with him all the time. He doesn’t have the vocabulary or the ability to imagine in detail and for  long, so he is.. blessed that way.

It is okay if you don’t share about your crush here. Anytime you want to share or communicate with me about a topic you don’t feel comfortable in the context of a public forum such as this, do  so privately via email. My record of your email is and always will be confidential.

Regarding pumpkins and parrots, you wrote: “parrot looked down on me for it. Told me it was juvenile”- the epitome of juvenile-ism is your mother. A Lifetime (cruel) Juvenile!

anita

Dear cali sister:

When I am on tb I don’t have a visual of my emails, so I will see the photo you sent me later. Today on my walk I’ll take my phone with me and take photos. Looking forward to see your dog holding a bone!

anita

Dear cali sister:

“Look when you can. I was just mentioning it”- you were worried that I felt pressured, to see your photo, didn’t you? Similar to your reactions to your sister, isn’t it, fearing that she will feel pressured to do one more thing for you and get angry at you.

Don’t worry, cali sister, this is not the same dynamic with me. No  worries. I mentioned the email visibility for a practical reason- now and in the future, when I am on tb, and you send me an email, I may not respond to it for hours (but will respond on the same day). Therefore, if you send me an email that you do want me to read  soon- let me know on tb that you sent it and that it is important to you that I read it soon- and I will.

Regarding the crush- I was thinking a bit about it, how I can.. mentor you perhaps through a relationship, or help mentor you so that it proceeds nicely. There will be challenges, no  doubt.

anita

Dear cali sister;

Was I correct or not correct in my understanding in my recent post to you, that you felt a bit anxious about causing me to feel like you were pressuring me to see the photo, that I would feel pressured and get angry at you, it being the dynamic with you sister?

I am checking my understanding, it will help me understand you better.

The crush/ relationship communication, if you want it strictly on email, that will be fine.

anita

Dear cali sister:

I appreciate your clarification (it will be very important to do that in your future romantic relationship, to clarify, both ways).

“I think I felt the need to clarify because of how my sister has treated me”- you mean her getting angry at you and blaming you for what was not true, blaming you for intentionally burdening her with your life?

anita

Dear cali sister:

Well, it is time, in this “New and improved.. journey, rebirth, a new world”, (one week after the huge step of No Contact- Congratulations for one week!), that you will be listened to. It is time that your life feels important to you and is treated as important by at least one other person, and hopefully, by a few people.

(Most people are too busy most of the time with their lives to consider others’ lives important).

Your thread which you initiated and chose the title, is your thread, not your sister’s. And this means that here I do not attend to her needs, her motivations, her life, but to you- your needs, your motivations, your life.

Problem when we decide to “rebirth” and live in a “new world” is our relationships with family members, such as your sister. Because the dynamics of the relationship were established in.. the old world.

So to live in a new world, you need relationships with new people. Maintain your relationship with your sister, but your rebirth, that cannot happen in the context of your relationship with her. New people are people with whom you can change your behavior of past and they will not make it difficult for you by maintaining a pre-established dynamic from an old world.

Makes sense?

anita

Dear cali sister:

You wrote yesterday about your father: “What I remember most about him is- his clothes, smell, and way of speaking”- these things that you remember most about him are the things that gave you that euphoric feeling of safety long ago, those moments of heavenly feeling of I-am-safe. This is the kind of feeling children have to have from time to time, so to grow up into adulthood.

As such memories occur to you about your father, remember- his smell, his clothes, his mannerism, these things never mean real safety for you- your childhood was not safe, not heavenly at all, far from it.

As you enter your second week of no-contact, I want to tell you this: you owe nothing-to-nobody. You  owe nothing to your mother, nothing to your father, nothing to your sister, nothing to me, nothing to anyone.

This is your life to live, your choices to make, this is your turn to experience your life with you in the center.

Post here if and when you want to. Be free in any and every way that is available to you.

anita