The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

One more sad story's one more than I can stand

My sister K. has been obsessing over having her wisdom teeth out for about two weeks or so. I want them out now!, she would say a little too loudly into the phone when I asked her about it, but I didn't take it personally. She gets worked up pretty easily, always the princess of the house. She wants to get pregnant again, like now, and she thinks that getting the wisdom teeth situation taken care of is essential before she does. Something about pain medication and being pregnant...I'm hazy but I know her argument was a good one. Anyway, today was the day for extraction, and my other sister took the nephew to her house so that K. could convalesce and experience the benefits of prescribed narcotics without interference. I expected that she'd be out and ready for swollen chipmunk face by about ten a.m, as this is the norm with most people I've known who've gone through it. Then, at around eleven, my mother calls to tell me that they couldn't do it. What do you mean?, I asked confused. There is something wrong with your sister's heart, she wailed dramatically, they couldn't go ahead with the procedure.

Now, to be clear, my mother is a worst-case scenario whore. I mean this in the sense that she always just goes there, that she couldn't find the silver lining if you shone a beam of light on it. She goes for the death sentence, the disability, the missing hands, the vegetative state and slow-moving wrath of advanced stage four whatever. Knowing this, I naturally figured that maybe my sister K. was nervous and that because she was so nervous, they opted to postpone the whole thing until she calmed herself down. I have never had my wisdom teeth out, but I'm assuming nervous, rabbit-hearted people are part of the norm. I tried to calm my mother's jitters and then she decided to let the walls down causing a deluge of her pent up rage and fear to roll right over me. There's no point to any of it, goddamit, I'm as good as dead, you know? I'm fifty-eight, life is just about over, what's the point of any of it? Oh, here we go, I thought. This is not my favourite kind of conversation with her.

So, side-stepping the more pressing concern about my sister's problems, I had to go on and on about how fifty-eight is not old, that she's being a drama queen for no good reason, that everyone dies and a twenty-year-old could get flattened by a bus just as easily as she could be struck down with a stroke or aneurysm. We hit on good time topics like her 'shopping sickness', the one which has her go out and buy stupid, expensive household knick-knacks when her mortgage isn't paid or the refrigerator is empty, and the fact that she seems hellbent on being depressed instead of recognizing the good in her life. What good? she muttered pathetically, my life has basically sucked! Oh, has it? Yeah!, she shrieked, and I swear I heard her bottom lip puff out.

She listed all the horrors of her life in no particular order: 1)father died when she was twelve, supposedly in front of her, of a heart attack after he'd told he was going to be okay, 2)two miscarriages, three babies (a boy, and a set of twins), 3) my father's ex-wife essentially stalking her in the beginning of their relationship, 4) a mother who didn't care about her, 5)losing the house she loved, 6)having to worry about having no money.

Of course I wanted to smack her, but I can't reach from here. Why would I want to hit my mother when she was pouring her heart out to me over the phone? Mostly because she's been doing this forever, feeling sorry for herself and making herself out to be the hardest done by without acknowledging that it's damaged everyone around in her some way. So, I countered each of her points: 1)Yes, her father died and that is sad, but to be fair, he lived longer than he probably should have given his heart problems from an early age and my grandmother eventually married someone who was a wonderful step-father to her, and an excellent grandparent to us, 2) she eventually had three healthy baby girls, 3) the ex-wife eventually went away and took the drama with her, 4) her mother did care, obviously, but she went through a major depression after her first husband died and it took some time to get it together but she did, of that I'm certain. Then, I went on to say that yeah, she lost a house, but she's had others along the way, that she has travelled over the years, enjoyed all of her vices without much interruption, and if she's so worried about money no one's stopping her from making it. She could get a job easily, it's the one career I keep seeing in demand in the want ads.

The trouble with you is, you seem to find the role of sadsack to be the most comfortable. Said the apple next to the tree.

What was surprising was that she didn't get defensive with me at all, didn't even try to justify herself which is really, really weird. I told her that everyone is feeling stressed at the moment, that she and everyone else needs to take a step back and breathe in deeply. Freaking out will accomplish nothing. I ought to know.

I later called my sister K. who proceeded to begin sobbing and venting about this new crisis in her life. An irregular, erratic heartbeat. I have to say that I would probably weep a little if I were her. It was tough to come up with supportive words because I am not a doctor and I don't know what might be causing this problem, but my sincere hope is that it's nothing but a reaction to a week long of stress over the wisdom teeth. Oh, she cried about the miscarriage she had in October, the fact that nothing is going for her at the moment, that she's beginning to think she's not supposed to have another baby and that she's 'too old' for it (she's thirty-five, and I laughed at her when she said this), that she feels like her body's falling apart, and so on. Instead of trying to 'fix' the problem, though, I just let her rage and wail because she's earned the right, I think, and trying to convince her that her fear and sadness is based on nothing didn't seem appropriate. I'm worried too. What does an irregular, erratic heartbeat mean? No, she can be a sadsack today if she wants, because she has had a fairly tumultuous few months and her reaction makes sense to me. I didn't want to reach through the phone and smack her, but I did want to hug her, which would have made her really uncomfortable and made her think she actually is dying.

I just want to turn on the news, pick up the phone, read the paper or answer the door to something good. I want it for you, I want it for me.