A couple of years have passed since I wrote and read here. People close to me have died, children have become adults, and I have been introspective only in my head lately, instead of converting and committing thoughts to tangible words and sentences. I came back because of reading what someone else wrote about turning 30, and it reminded me that I had some thoughts about when I turned 30 many years ago. Thoughts while being in my 30s. Many thoughts. Not the same ones, just thoughts. Most of what I wrote here, until today, was from ages 35-39.

I  have been struggling all month with thoughts of my sister. I want to not be angry at her for being disconnected from me. Her distance is not to the point of being estranged, just uninterested in me enough that she doesn’t keep in touch or answer back. A lot of what I wrote here years ago, although unrelated to my sister, would help me deal with that.

I’m still angry that she hasn’t answered my message I sent October 9th and it is now November 11th. I wanted her to answer about whether she and her family could have a birthday dinner for her and our mother. I knew if I asked her to join us, she might not answer and I knew that would make me feel upset. I knew if I didn’t ask her, I would feel guilty about not including her. I decided it was better to risk the pain of her not answering than to not invite and include her. Now that she hasn’t answered, I’m still upset and I don’t want to be. The frustration and hurt goes back throughout the last 20 years — too many years of feeling like this for me to let go of my hurt over her ignoring my birthday invitation as quickly as I would like to.

My friend Katarina suggested recently that perhaps my sister is jealous of me and that’s why she is distant. I pondered that for a few weeks. I have never believed she is jealous; I believe just the opposite, that she looks down on me. Even if she was ever jealous, why would that lead to her being distant? It’s not quite rational, but I’m open to the possibility that it could be rational. I have been considering how the illusion of her being jealous of me could make it easier for me to cope with the fact that she doesn’t want me in her life for whatever reasons — I know the main reason is that she is too busy with her family and her job to think about me much. Another thing Katarina reminded me about is that my sister is introverted, and I am not. I find my mind going to all the reasons she would have for not liking me as a person, all my faults and all my mistakes from when I was much younger. I guess that’s what hurts. That and maybe being forgotten. Being forgotten is different from being looked down upon. Or is it? Did being looked down upon precede being forgotten? Are any of these reasons even real? What difference does it make, other than what negative thoughts about this are swirling through the pathways in my brain, looking for a way to be free from the confines of my brain?

I had been upset for years that she rarely gets in touch with me when she comes to the town I live in for football games, and she lives three hours away. I see her once or twice per year. Someone very wise said to me last year, when I complained, something that made me feel much better about it, something that I had not really considered: I and my sister have very little interests in common. Hers and her family’s are in sports, hunting whatever’s in season, country music and church. Me — none of those things. Political preferences are different. (Insert shudder.)

I wrote here several times about the pain of people not responding. I haven’t covered here how this related to my sister. I’ve thought a lot about how our brains invent negative reasons about ourselves when someone fails to respond, and other people, instead of internalizing the reasons, simply assign the non-responder’s rudeness and inconsideration to the non-response and they move on.