Still kickin'

Have I told you all recently that I love you? Because, I do. You have all provided much needed support. I am feeling a bit more on an even keel, despite the fact that we are pretty much snowed in. According to the guy that gravelled our long, steep driveway a couple of years ago, no plow truck could ever hope to make it up our driveway to plow it. He said that he would come dig us out on Saturday with a BACK HOE! Oh my god, what's that gonna cost us?

So I took a taxi into my therapy appointment today, because I really, really needed therapy badly. Glad I did, because along with all of your comments, it helped. Screw the mock trial, I am too busy with real life stuff anyway. If I keep telling myself that, eventually I will believe it. That helps me avoid the idea of running into the main lecture hall, and blowing everyone away with one well placed nuc1ear we@pon. (Please don't call the police, because in reality, just the fact that I thought of that scares the hell out of me. I have a hard time hurting a spider, much less a human being.) Anyway, with my fabulous mental health record, no one would let me have so much as a BB gun. So step away from the phone!

Now I am about to rant about my overly religious, bible thumping sister. I hope that I don't offend those of you who do have faith in a higher being, but I really need to get this out. I have the utmost respect for people who keep the faith, but I consider faith and religion and spirituality a very private thing. I have no problem with people who blog about it, it's their blog after all, and that never offends me. I also am not offended when people say they will pray for me or someone else. It shows that they care in their own way, I am grateful for that. But when someone actively and specifically tells (not requests, but instructs) me to pray, when they know that I don't and won't, it really bugs the fuck out of me. I am an adult, I have made my decision after much deep thought, and I plan on sticking with it. I do have a godchild, and her mother knows my feelings. I see myself as a spiritual person, in my own right, not a religious person. So I think I am up for the job. That said, here goes my rant.

My sister, let's call her Beth for now, she is an elementary school teacher and the 3rd of the four girls in my family. All of us didn't exactly get all of the love and attention that we needed as kids, so we each found individual ways of getting attention outside the family. I chose school and buried myself in it, typical 1st child syndrome. The 2nd, we'll call her Anne, well she chose sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, oh and the occasional beating from a boyfriend or two. Beth carved out her own niche, by attending church pretty much every day from the time she was around 8 years old. She had a friend whose father was a pastor and she attended church with them, every chance she could get. Not a bad plan, if it wasn't to the extreme. She preached to all of us on a daily basis. She told our mother that if she didn't go to church she couldn't continue to be her mother, and she said she would be adopting a new mom from church. Nice, huh? The funniest one, was when she told our mother that when she got married, she would have to sit in the second row, while her "real", church mom would get to sit in the first row. My mother said that if that was in her plans, then she had best ask her new mom to pay for the wedding as well. With all of the trouble that Anne and myself gave my mother, nothing was more difficult to battle than a bible thumping, self righteous teenager called Beth. Nothing.

Beth knows very well that I am not a Christian, I am Buddhist. Period. I don't talk about my spirituality with her unless she asks a specific question. And even then, I limit it to very basic, need to know information. I have asked her repeatedly not to preach to me and to keep her faith to herself around me. Yes, I am a total bitch, but that's just me. As an aside, she does things that I don't usually associate with a devout Christian. Before her wedding she got a full Brazilian wax job. FULL! Now, I really try hard not the judge her, but that just struck me as odd. But hey, what do I know. The other funny thing this kid did as a teenager to demonstrate her faith, she got a tattoo. Not a big deal, except that it's on her ass and is a tattoo consisting of a Jesus fish, a cross, and some other religious symbol I didn't recognize. Anne and I taunt her regularly and tell her she is sitting on God. We're relentless, I know, but it's our job, because we're sisters.

Now Beth is pretty clueless about life's challenges in general. And her awareness of the struggles of infertility is zilch, nada, nothing. Her idea of struggling to have a baby is trying to build up enough funds to buy all the nursery furniture from P0ttery B@rn. That's her biggest concern. So from the land of clueless, she continues to send me updates on 4th sis', Carrie's, pregnancy. In fact, Beth went so far as to announce the sex of Carrie's fetus today and send out a picture of her pregnant belly. Never mind, that Carrie is perfectly capable and probably wanted to do the gender announcement herself. And I won't even go on about the fact that she signed it "Aunt Beth". But the final straw was when she told me to pray for Carrie, her pregnancy, and her baby girl.

It's everything I can do to not send her a picture of my middle finger. Everything.