Her voice was scathing, scornful. She hissed out her words, and then followed them up with an empty disclaimer � �not in a mean way,� as if that would diminish her vehemence. She wants to know what MY issues are. Why I�M behaving this way. More accurately, why I did not take her calls.

She said she had a dream last night. In her first message, she was almost nice, and said she wanted to tell me about her dream. I had a dream last night. I dreamt that she was saying mean things with the intention to hurt me. I dreamt that she was scowling as she spit her words at me, and in my dream, I was deeply wounded, my face frozen in a caricature of shock and pain.

Yes, at first she sounded like she wanted to talk, dangled something sweet over my phone in hopes that I would call back quickly to take her words. She didn�t wait for an entire hour before calling back and leaving the second message. Not one hour. She accused me of being distant, accused me of having issues and �holding a grudge� because she deleted my emails without reading them (so she says). I do not hold a grudge. Quite the contrary. I have let go.

The last time we spoke, she told me that we are �distant relatives, and not friends at all,� because I had made it that way. She told me I was a disappointment. This was last Wednesday. I certainly did not see it coming, because we had such a great time (I thought) over the weekend. When she showed me pictures and I helped her with her dead hamster. I thought things were okay, I was elated that we were on good terms.

And then she called. And it started all over again. You know, I wrote a poem about this exact cycle, in 1994. I�ll find it and post it. But my point is, I don�t care anymore about trying to be understood by her.

I let go. I give up. I�m done.

My friends don�t make me cry on a regular basis, so why should I allow my family to do just that? I don't. Not anymore.

-Barbarella

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