Why, hello, old me. I DIDN'T MISS YOU AT ALL.

I have to confess to something. Lately, old, annoying habits are creeping back in on me like ... I don't know, annoying creeping things. (Do you like how, when a metaphor is not at my fingertips, I just keep going? Quality, schmality.)

Are you ready?

My biggest habit is getting frustrated at people for not doing something I think they should be doing.

Ha! That's a big habit, yes? How nice it would be if I just had a smoking problem or bit my nails or something. Even a totally bizarre habit, like constantly flapping my hands on my wrists while I talk or continuously crumpling up little balls of paper and eating them (or both, which would be quite a trick), would be vastly preferable to this one giant habit I have. But no. When I have a habit, I do my best to make it the biggest, most all-encompassing, relationship-ruining habit possible. It's probably the overachiever in me.

In my defense, this habit is a CARING habit. My urge to control the entire population of the earth as if they are my own personal marionettes stems entirely from a set of the very best intentions. Put simply, I want people I know to be happy. And they often complain about things that make them the exact opposite of happy.

I'll give you a made-up example. Say I have this friend who is all, "Man, this house I live in just makes me so UNHAPPY. I just want to cry with the unhappiness. I just wish there was something I could do. But there is nothing I can do. I've tried moving the couch, but it didn't help. I even painted the den. I have explored all avenues of action. Nothing works. Not even hanging things on the walls that are from Target and who doesn't love Target. I am doomed, mostly because the house has three unsolvable structural problems, all of which I can describe to you in great detail, and these problems invoke my utmost misery. I am thus mired in a dark black sludge, the clutches of which I shall never escape. You're so lucky you're not me, because I am trapped in the walls of this house like a ... a house mouse. Wait, that sounds cute, but I'm actually feeling very devastated."

And innocent, sweet me, all angelic and caring, gets super excited, because, hey! I just thought of a solution! So I clap my hands together and then grab them enthusiastically by the shoulders and say, "Oh! Oh! I know the answer! You're going to love me forever when I share this with you: you could simply move OUT of that house and live somewhere else!"

Surprisingly enough, my hypothetical friend does not, in fact, love me forever. (Join me in my shock, will you?) Actually they usually shoot me an annoyed look and don't invite me out for dinner ever again. The last words out of their mouths, before they leave angrily and never come back, are usually something like, "Ugh. Moving out of the house that makes me unhappy ... how could you even suggest such a thing? That option is clearly impractical, because ... well, I don't know, but what I do know is that you're really irritating and need to get off your high horse of advice already. Wait! I think I can't move because of interest rates, or something! That's right. Whew. I almost forgot why but that is definitely why. Well, that and because renting isn't feasible, because ... uh ... I think because I just read this article about crook landlords. Whatever. Shut up. It's easy for you to say I should just move, because you're really effing lucky and your life is awesome and you work at home in your pajamas so you can't possibly understand what it's like to be born under a forever curse, like me."

Then the hypothetical friend continues, in a sudden bout of inspiration, "The answer to my problem isn't moving at all. The answer is excessive whining about my paralysis in this situation, the racking up of some credit-card debt, and then maybe the rationalization of a purchase of a giant fudge sundae, which I will then ingest, right before I complain about my weight. Which you also would not understand so don't even LOOK at me like that, you skinny bitch."

Right now I have several friends reading this blog who are sitting there, thinking to themselves, Oh my God, she's talking about ME. In an overdramatized, side-splittingly humorous fashion, but still, she's talking about ME.

Ha! That's where you're wrong. I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about EVERYBODY. I tricked you into thinking you were special, that this blog post is about you, when the fact is, I've hit all of you this week, sniper-style! I've been on a tear!

Oh, what an awful habit. Really. I hate it. This habit makes me want to rock back and forth and grind my teeth. This habit is a demon and I would so, so love to exorcise. Lord knows I've tried. I studied witchcraft. I ate boiled bat wings while chanting, "Spirit of bat, float and soar! Bring my best qualities to the fore! Leave my flaws on the batcave floor, and please let me quit being such a judgmental ... person!" Nothing worked.

This habit has caused me such guilt and unhappiness. My efforts to help people be happy didn't change anything. People were as unhappy as they'd been before. I couldn't help them, which made me sad, and they were annoyed with me for trying, which made me even sadder (and, okay, kind of defensive). Not to mention frustrated, because FOR GOD'S SAKE GET A GRIP AND JUST MOVE OUT OF THE HOUSE ALREADY BEFORE I BURN IT DOWN JUST TO SHUT YOU UP.

I'm beautiful and complex! Like a snowflake.

I know lots of people in awful marriages, awful jobs, awful friendships, awful LIVES, and I. just. want. to. shove. them. I want to make them move, snap them out of it, do for them what they cannot seem to do for themselves. Life is too short, and I panic on their behalf, because how can they not want more for themselves? How can they fail to care about themselves at all? How are they okay with just being so miserable all the time? Isn't it unfair that they just expect me to do nothing and watch them suffer? Isn't that asking too much of me as their friend? I care about them so much that it becomes a source of toxic impatience and frustration. It's bad for me, it's bad for them, it doesn't help anyone. I know this. I've tried to stop. Did I mention I've tried to stop? The boiled bat wings, remember. I ate them.

Let's review my About post and have a good laugh, shall we?

"I will tell you that I've gotten much, much better at realizing that it is unhealthy to be upset at people for being stupid, when they will always be stupid in some ways, and for that matter so will I. ... Know that I am working mostly on myself--what I need to do to be fitter, happier, more productive (bonus points to you if you get the Radiohead reference). There's a lot about me that I can work on, and I think I've finally realized that it is far better to do that instead of worrying about what everyone else is doing."

HA! HA! Oh God.

Exhibit B: "If you secretly enjoy the drama of feeling angry, you will never run out of things in this world to be angry about, but take it from me: that's not a good hobby. Think of all of the times you are upset. How often is it about something someone else is doing? I know people who fret constantly out loud about how their friend should stop doing drugs/sleeping around/having kids/spending money--as their OWN marriage/career/budget/value system falls apart in front of them. Try to work on yourself instead of being angry about what other people are or aren't doing. You probably suck in lots of ways too. I know I do."

Oh, that's precious. Look at how hard I was trying. LOOK HOW HARD.

That was me in November. And for a while, I was true to my word. People I knew complained, and I said either positive things ("Well, I'm sure you'll figure something out eventually--you're smart! These things just take time") or neutral things ("Oh, well, I can see how that would be upsetting") or just changed the subject ("Look! Cookies!"). And you know what? I felt HAPPIER. Because I wasn't getting ulcers over the fact that my hypothetical friend insisted on torturing herself by living in that damn hypothetical house. Instead I was enjoying my life, living and letting live, and it felt really, really good. I was realizing that we all have problems, that we all complain just because it feels good to complain, and most of us are really OK with our lives in general and aren't looking for solutions. I could admit that I am often the author of my own demise. I could look at how often I complain about deadline killing me and acknowledge that everyone knows that's my own fault, yet THEY let ME complain, how nice of them, and I should return the favor.

In fact I could understand that me writing a post about my bad habits is the EXACT SORT OF THING that keeps me from getting my work done. Yet I continue to write posts instead of doing my work. Because I am human. Just like everyone else.

In other words, I gave up that habit, and it felt wonderful.

Then, a few months later, I secretly decided once again, without really informing myself of the attitude change, that I am perfect, I know everything, and people should just listen to me. I'm incorrigible, apparently. (And sexy. But I don't see what that has to do with anything.)

So, look. It's time for a change, for me to try again, because I know letting go of this habit is the answer to my problem. And MY problem is the one I need an answer to--not everyone else's problems. I tried to give this habit up once, and I succeeded, if only for a little while, and that gives me hope that maybe, eventually, I will be rid of it forever. I don't know how I got in this damn house, but it's time to move out again and start from scratch. Well, not ENTIRELY from scratch. I'm taking the stuff on the walls, because it's from Target and who doesn't love Target.

A truce twenty-six years in the making

If the stinging slap she delivered to my mother upon my birth* is any indication, my sister really, really liked being an only child. Either that, or she really, really didn't like me in particular. From my position it really didn't matter which was true, as the resulting abject sibling hatred was the same in either scenario.

Our first meeting clearly did not go well, despite my mother's efforts to prepare my sister for that fateful day. My mother says she gave my sister a doll, and the idea was that caring for babies was something my sister and mother could do together, like, "Here, you take care of your plastic baby and I'll take care of this real baby, and we can work side by side and spend lots of time together making sure our babies have everything they need." I think this was supposed to convince my sister that we were all in this together and that it would be fun. Unfortunately my sister isn't really that stupid.

So instead I can imagine that whatever cute little baby doll my mother gave her became not a symbol of sisterly love, as my mother may have hoped, but a rudimentary introduction to voodoo. I was too little to remember, but if my sister's feelings for me at the time are any indication, she was holding that thing underwater and chanting in tongues while wishing fervently for my prompt demise so she could once again have all the parental love to herself. She was precocious that way.

It didn't help that my sister and I were (and still are) so very different. My sister liked to count things, add them up, witness the mechanics of reality in motion. She could read at three and was probably arranging her own sock drawer by three and a half. Had computerized spreadsheets been readily available back in 1981, she would have eagerly used one to sort her stuffed animals by size, color, and texture (Smooth gets a value of 0, Mildly Fluffy gets a value of 3, and Wispy Angora gets the maximum value of 10).

And if she were indeed into baby-doll voodoo, I have no doubt her instruments of doll torture were always sterilized and organized neatly on a surgical tray. If I know her at all, the shank she shoved into the left eye socket of my plastic effigy was carefully sharpened to a deadly point, with routine sharpening maintenance on alternate Tuesdays.

While my sister was counting things and reading and impressing the heck out of everyone in general, I was wading in my own pile of unwashed laundry and trying to build parachutes out of garbage bags, which I would then hold over my head as I leaped ceremoniously off the highest point of our house that I could climb to. Unfortunately my handmade parachutes never slowed my descent, so all I got was sore ankles while my sister racked up a perfect grade-point average. I also attempted to dig several holes to China using only a fruit spoon (which is all my mother would let me dig with) while my sister did productive things like earn an allowance and find ways to rebuild the ozone layer.

That's right. I was the quirky kid. The one people write novels about. The one with the uncrushable spirit and vivid imagination. In literary works, that type of kid is inspiring and cute. (I was Ramona, for God's sake. Who doesn't like Ramona?) In reality that type of personality can be really annoying. As my entire family could probably attest.

In fact, kid's books are packed full of lies. I don't remember anyone being all that into Beezus, but everyone seemed impressed with my sister. Her intellect and obedience were so out-of-this-world that my parents weren't quite sure what to do with me. When one child is busy carefully sweeping the porch and the other child is busy smashing her fingers into her closed eyelids because it makes funny colors,** that tends to give parents pause.

My parents looked from one child to the other and determined that I was "dumb as a box of rocks," as my mother still phrases it to this very day. They consoled themselves with the notion that one smart child was enough for any family. And it isn't as if they gave up hope for me. They made sure I got plenty of fresh air as I ran around outside, so that my spirit and body would be fed and encouraged, so that I could bask in the wholesomeness of nature and perhaps find my own unintellectual path to happiness ... or at least build up my muscles enough to turn a pretty penny as a unskilled laborer in the shoe factory.

But lo! I went to kindergarten and underwent many tests, and it turned out that I was smart too! In a fanciful, useless way, versus the productive and profitable accountant sort of way! No one was more surprised than my parents when it was discovered that I almost always knew the right answer when it was requested of me--I just never raised my hand, because hand-raising is boring and was clearly designed by The Man. (My sister, on the other hand, probably raised her hand every time she knew the answer, because that is what you are supposed to do. Suck-up.) I never offered the answer voluntarily, because why bother if no one is even going to pay you or anything.

But as soon as someone got a clue and gave me a magic pen that rewarded me with pretty music when I tapped it on the right answer in a book,*** it was discovered that I was practically a genius. A really, really lazy genius.

If anything, this discovery only heightened the tension between me and my sister. Suddenly everything was a competition. But we were so different that each of us frequently lost in humiliating defeats/won in landslide victories, depending on the competition category in question. I could draw and she could not. She could add and I could not. We didn't allow the obvious fact that we were apples and oranges slow us down any when it came to gleefully shoving our achievements in the other sister's face.

Our rough start combined with our personality differences translated into about sixteen years of household strife. There were other factors, too, especially later on; as the responsible one, she often tried to parent me, asking whether I had done my homework and so on. Our mother was sick, and I'm sure she was just trying to help, but the high-school version of me, who was as fiercely independent and bull-headed as I am today, resented it with teeth-gritting ingratitude. I didn't care about her life and was baffled as to why she would bother to care about mine. All I wanted was to be left alone. In fact I was self-absorbed and oblivious (two things I will probably always be, despite my best efforts--it comes with living inside one's own imagination and also having what is, in all likelihood, unmedicated ADD), and for every instance of inappropriate parenting my sister committed, I'm sure I committed an instance of utter failure to be there for my struggling family, to help with small chores and tasks or to realize that I was needed in some way. I couldn't stand my sister's prissy, holier-than-thou meddling; she couldn't stand my shrugging, selfish lack of contribution. Simply put, we were a mess.

I tortured her whenever possible and she returned the favor, and ... I hated her. Really hated her. I could tell you stories that would make my hate for her sound amusing, but if I'm going to be very honest with you, it wasn't amusing at all. It was sick and unhealthy. I used to wish fervently that she would run away, move away, be kidnapped, anything, just so I would never have to hear her voice again, just so she would never again get into my business or nag me about studying or whatever she felt like mothering me about that day. I used to tremble with how much I hated her. The day I found out she wasn't going away to college, but rather had chosen to stay home and attend school locally ... I think that was the most angry with anyone I have ever been, even to this day. I couldn't believe she would choose to continue living with me. I couldn't believe she had thrown away a golden opportunity to rescue both of us from what we did to each other.

After that, there was no question that I was going away to school. As I saw it, she hadn't left me with much of a choice. The day I left, I was a nervous wreck, but still somehow found time to say really offensive and selfish things, like how happy I was to finally be around a bunch of normal people rather than a family who seemed to spend most of their time in a hospital. Once I had made sure everyone's feelings were good and hurt, I headed off to school and thought only about myself and my own strife for about four years.

And then, really slowly ... I don't know. I grew up some and lost a bit of the vain selfishness, she grew up some and lost a bit of the goal-oriented neuroticism, my mother's health improved, and somehow the tension eased. Then my sister had a baby, and we all loved the baby, and that made things better too. And I saw things her way sometimes, or at least I tried to, and I think she extended me the same courtesy a little more often. I still don't understand how failing to get a 4.0 GPA every semester qualifies as some sort of tragedy, and she still doesn't understand how I can sleep at night with the knowledge that I have never, not even for the first week, balanced my checkbook, but I think we've agreed to disagree, at least on some things.

And over time, I've started to realize that she isn't the only difficult one in the family ... that we're all difficult in our own way. That's been one of the hardest things about growing up: facing my own enormous flaws and understanding how extensively they contributed to the family strife that I once blamed entirely on my sister. (She still sucked worse than me, of course. Naturally.)

HIGHLY DRAMATIZED EXAMPLE CONVERSATION ONE:
MY SISTER IS VERY DIFFICULT
Schnozz: I'm thinking of moving to New York!
Schnozz's sister: New York? Really?
S: Yup!
SS: But ... isn't it really expensive to live there?
S: Yeah, I guess ... but so many people do it that obviously there's a way. I'll work it out.
SS: I hear it's really violent too.
S: There's a lot of crime there, sure, but there are a lot of people there too, and I'll be careful. Try being happy for me for once! You can't base your decisions on the fear that someone will rape and kill you.
SS: Yes you can! Why, just the other day I decided I'd better not leave the house because I heard on the radio that some killer was on the loose a mere three hundred miles from here. Besides, three of the five weather forecasts I check every day called for rain.
S: Uh. Right. Anyway, New York! I'm excited.
SS: I don't see why you're excited about being raped and killed.
S: What?? Shut up. It's an adventure!
SS: Yeah, if you consider being garroted in a deserted subway station and then thrown on the electrified rails and left for dead an adventure.
S: Ohhhhh-kay. I'm leaving now, for New York, to have an exciting, fulfilling life. You just stay here, where it's safe.
SS: I will. I have no interest in moving to a dirty city full of homeless people just waiting to slice your throat open for a dollar, but that's just me. Enjoy New York. I'll miss you when you're dead.

HIGHLY DRAMATIZED EXAMPLE CONVERSATION TWO:
I AM VERY DIFFICULT
SS: We really need to talk about something.
S: Okay! Hey, look, I can make a face that makes me sort of look like a turtle.
SS: I'm being serious. Can't you be serious for once?
S: Fine, fine. You're serious, I'm serious, we're all very serious. We're serious lawyer types. We're so serious that we don't even laugh when someone farts really loud in church. Because it's not funny. Church is not funny. Nor is farting. Farting is merely digestive gases escaping from the body via the anus and we don't find that funny at all. That's how serious we are. Here, look, I'll make a serious face. Well, a serious turtle face, anyway.
SS: You're impossible.
S: All right, all right. I'm listening. What's up?
SS: Well, it's about Grandma. Her bills have been really high lately, but you know she's going to insist on giving us a really good Christmas anyway, even if it means she'll be homeless by New Year's. So I think we should sit down with her and explain to her that we love her whether she gets us presents or not--
S: Speaking of Christmas, my mashed potatoes are sort of in the shape of a Christmas tree. Aren't they? Look! It's a mashed-potato tree! With garlands of cheese and garlic! I wish real garlands were made of cheese and garlic.
SS: OH MY GOD. Are you even listening to me? Don't you even care about your own impoverished grandma?
S: What Grandma needs is a drink or two. Let's take her out tonight. Can you imagine that, Grandma wasted? That would be hilarious. She would be all drunk and dancing on the bar, like, "Don't you wish your Grandma was a hot like me ... don't you wish your Grandma was a freak like me ... Doncha?"
SS: Um, I'll just ... take care of this myself. Bye.
S (to self): Doncha? Haaaaah-aah? Doncha?
(time passes while Schnozz stares into space with a half-smile on her face)
S (again, to self): I suppose the question is whether, in a bar striptease, one would remove one's teeth as part of the act, if one could.

We all have our flaws, as you can see.

The point is, my sister just came to visit me in St. Louis for a few days. And despite my lack of planning and inability to get ready on time, much less be aware of my guests' obvious needs, and despite her highway-induced anxiety and continual preoccupation with whether her travel budget was being followed appropriately, we managed to get along and even have a pretty good time. I'd say that's quite an accomplishment.

I enjoyed your visit, sis. We may never share a sitcom-worthy cheesy sisterhood, but I'm glad we no longer actively try to kill each other. Sure, I still will never, ever have kids close in age just in case they turn out like us, and sure, I will actively beg other mothers to refrain from having kids close together as well ... but if I ever do move to New York, I still hope you'll visit before I'm inevitably murdered in an alley.

And ... make sure you take care of that Grandma thing, OK?****
---------
*Yes, really.
**A favorite hobby of mine for years. It kind of hurts after a while, but the longer you do it, the more interesting and rapid the color splotches get. I used to do it almost every night to entertain myself after bedtime. This probably wasn't good for me, but back then it seemed like a perfectly reasonable way to pass the time.
***I only missed one question in that entire book. And it was a BS question about which was "bigger," a 2 or 3. I examined them carefully and determined that while the 3 obviously signified a larger amount, the 2 was technically "bigger," as in, its ink took up more square footage on the page. So I answered "2" and the tester was appropriately startled at my sudden lapse in intelligence. More important, no pretty music came out of the pen. I'm still pissed.
****I will totally take care of the next thing to pay you back. Unless I'm like, super busy or don't really feel like it.