Boundaries

 I got a text yesterday from my half-sister.  We don't communicate often and we really don't have much in common other than the same biological mother.  I have enjoyed hanging out with her on most occasions, have supported her through various personal situations, cheered her on when she found her dream job and chased it with all the voracity and passion that made me smile so hard because it's one thing that we both share - we are both tenacious.  

Unfortunately, she and I do not agree on political ideology and unfortunately, she also gets sucked into various misinformation rabbit holes that I have tried share and educate her with studies, proof, receipts, whatever you want to call it.  The facts are out there for her to see, plain and simple (well, maybe not that simple) and she refuses to even do the research.  Our last conversation on Monday started as light hearted but then it headed towards the current political climate.  

I have tried to keep things non-political on my blog.  I have tried to follow the life-long advice of "just keep your head down."  I have tried to keep my mouth shut and slowly over the past year, I have been opening my mouth.  At first, it was a silent scream.  I have been doing the whole silent scream thing for several years, watching various communities, PEOPLE, have their rights eroded.  This past year, more and more attacks on people have increased.  I have several friends who do not leave the house without their birth certificate and passport anymore.  My wife and I are actively taking steps to ensure that our marriage is protected if the Supreme Court comes out and terminates gay marriage - even though we were married for more than a decade prior to her transition and name change.  Two of my 14-year-olds friends have actively tried to unalive themselves, one of them attempting it twice in less than a month!   

It's not just my mental health that has been in the toilet, my entire family has been dealing with some very hard things and I feel like if I don't start standing up and saying something, not just hiding away and "keeping my head down" what kind of example and I setting for my children?  What kind of parent am I if I'm not setting the example, putting up the boundaries, and most importantly keeping those boundaries.  

Unfortunately, when you start enforcing those boundaries, the people that you are enforcing them against, they tend to view it as an attack or punishment.  

For several years, I have shifted the conversation when things start to get heated, and that's definitely on me for allowing negative things into my comfort zone.  Again, I was operating under the keep your head down philosophy which also falls into the avoid conflict philosophy.  I am very much conflict avoidant.  BUT that doesn't mean that if pushed to my limit that I won't do or say anything.  My problem is that once I have been pushed to the limit (generally after many warnings to people), I will explode.   I will say things that are very much not nice.  I have in the past gone for low hanging fruit, been snarky and sarcastic, and thrown some very ugly insults. I can and have been mean if the need arised.   

I am, however, trying to be better about stuff like that.  I had talked with my sister on several occasions about how she was feeding into the lies, trying to show her research, showing her that the people that she was listening to were very much wrong, racist, bigoted, homophobic.  I have corrected her on pronouns for several members of our family.  Our conversation on Monday, however, while it started congenially, disintegrated once she started spouting the lies that contine to be towed by the GOP and current administration.  I simply do not understand how someone who has been abused herself can listen to anything that comes out of a certain tangerine colored palpatine's mouth.  After continuously telling her that I didn't want to discuss the lies that she was repeating especially after telling her that she needed to stop, I finally told her (as did my wife) that I was simply not going to continue having the same conversation with her and we hung up the phone.  

When we got home I proceeded to take her off my socials.  For months, her reposting of bullshit and vapid content, I just decided I didn't want to see it anymore and I did what I've been doing with others that do the same - I took the nuclear option and I completely blocked her from my socials.  I don't want to see her stuff, I don't want to hear about her stuff and I honestly don't care about how she's pissed off because a man broke up with her and he won't answer her phone calls anymore.  

Apparently, though, that is an attack.  No, it's me sticking to the boundaries I laid out.  I also find it absolutely amusing that she even cares about me blocking her.  It's not like she ever looks at mine.  I have always said that my socials are more of a diary for me, just like this blog.  I have it for myself.  At heart, I'm a historian and I'm fascinated by the stories of PEOPLE throughout time.  Maybe someday this blog will show some student of anthropology what life was like for a neuro-spicy Mom of 3.  I also love writing and honestly?  Who cares what I have to say.  I'm a tiny fish in a giant sea of people.  I'm no more important than the next guy.  I still want my story out in the universe.  I don't care about fame or fortune, I just want to be heard.  And if I enjoy writing, why not write about what I know?  That would be my life, by the way.  

Every day I discover more and more about myself and learn more and more about the world I live in.  In fact, as I was writing this today, I had to stop a few times and deal with a plumber.  During that time we also chit chatted about our ice maker and how his wife wants one and if I liked me.  I also found out he's a huge fan of movie theater popcorn and just got a fancy popcorn maker.  I shared with him how we make popcorn here out home that tastes just like the stuff you get in movie theaters.  I love having conversations like that!  I love sharing things and talking with other people! I always have.  My Dad was the same way.  

My sister can keep posting what I think is vapid content.  I'm going to keep writing and posting my own stuff to.  She doesn't have to listen to me anymore than I have to listen to her.  Just because she's family, doesn't mean I have to follow her every step.  AND just because she's family doesn't mean that I can't block her from my stuff.  I'm actually quite proud of myself for saying nope, this is enough.