Sister Issues/My Hunger Strike

I'm starving and fuming because I boycotted our family dinner tonight. Aside from the immediate circumstances leading up to this, my action perhaps represents the culmination of a summer full of tension between me and my sister.

Despite the glaring differences that make my sister and I so extremely unalike I think that my she might be in the same tough stage I just escaped. My sister is a social butterfly with a schedule that could make any sane person pass out from just contemplating the thought of doing so much. While I believe most students should try to relax over the short summer months (and lord knows my sister could probably use some downtime), my sister's decided to juggle insane hours of work, a summer class, ample hours at the gym, and a thriving social life. As you might guess, family barely figures into the equation...

...which is a shame because for years my dad worked out of state, then I went off and spent the last three years in New York, and now my sister goes to school down South. The days we can spend together as a family in the same home are coming to an end... and yet to be together as a family is a humble wish to which my Mom always clung ferverntly. To achieve that goal, my mom tries to make a point of preparing dinner every night. That way, at least we all have a common reason and a designated time to convene.

Yet being the hyper-individualist with a bombastic schedule my sister is, she brushes family dinners aside as some sort of "cute," silly notion. When the table is set and the aroma of delicious warm food fills the house, my sister's dismissive attitude grinds up against reality and her attitude manifests a caustic edge. She gets snappy, and impatient, as though, "what you really expect me to sit and eat with you guys?!?" Almost outraged. "But I want to go to the gym! I'm not hungry! I was going to meet up with friend X, Y, or Z. I got homework," etc., etc. ad naseum with whatever excuse du jour.

Rarely will she join us for a casual hour. Sometimes she'll grace us with her presence--usually for a limited amount of time and with strings attached. Often she's simply absent.

I try to be empathetic. In a way I suppose my sister is in that awful place I used to be in--overwhelmed with work and obligations, gasping for time. I want to tell her that I've been there, and I want to help her out of there. I want to tell her to prioritize, to do only what she wants most, to make sure she doesn't exhaust herself. But she has no patience for hearing my experiences and (perhaps as a result of our rocky relationship) often mistakes my counsel for scorn. Perhaps she'll crash and burn like me, perhaps its just a lesson that's hard to comprehend until you painfully endure (and hopefully survive) it.

But even in my most overwhelming days, I always tried to designate an hour or two where I could just push pause and relax--often that was at dinner for me. So admittedly my patience runs short when my sister acts like a family dinner is such an outlandish request. And my attitude perhaps also take a caustic turn when my sister exploits or sabotages our family dinners.

Earlier this week my sister exploited our family dinners. After days, if not weeks, of not eating with us she came up to my mom and said she told one of her friends that we have family dinners and invited him to join us. My mom, in her good-heartedness, worked extra hard to make an extra nice dinner for my sister and that guy. And then when the day came my sister waltzed into the dining room with some guy none of us had met before. My sister tried to act all perky and happy, and perhaps it was because she had a lot to be thankful for, but some of it felt like an act to impress the guy. It made for a rather awkward dinner--it was awkward and unusual enough to see my sister at the table again. But moreover, I couldn't go along with the whole act. I'm uneasy with my sister's game. In my mind I wanted to tell her, "After having such a nasty attitude about our dinners for so long, you can't just invite a stranger to our home for dinner and expect everything to be nice and dandy." Maybe I begrudge, but I also believe that a relationship and good family is something you have to work at. You can't be absent for weeks and order a happy family on demand for one evening.

Then tonight my sister sabotaged our dinner. Although my mom usually insists on setting the table for my sister, after weeks of no-shows we had just grown accustomed to making dinner at whatever time was convenient for us--without consulting my sister who would normally whine about it or simply tell us she's not going to come for some reason or what not.

For a week I had been looking forward to this delicious tuna dish that we made tonight. I went shopping with my mom this evening, and after putting all the groceries away we went straight to cooking together. I graded some ginger, squeezed lemons, and seared tuna filets as my mom took care of the rest of the recipe. As I went about flipping the tunas amidst crackling, hot olive oil my sister barged into the house shouting something or other and dripping sweat from the gym.

My mom and I finished the cooking and set the table for four. My tummy was growling and my mouth salivating for one of my favorite dishes. I told my sister (who was on the phone) that dinner was ready. I returned down to the dining-kitchen area of the house and my sister followed shortly. "Oh they're here!" she exclaimed. I had no clue who was here, neither did my mom, and neither did my dad was sitting comfortably on the couch with no shirt on watching TV.

In come two of my sister's girlie girlfriends. Dad, embarrassed, runs upstairs past the girls to put a shirt on and never comes back down. My mom, always friendly, eagerly starts talking to the girls. My sister declares that she's going to take a "ten second shower" and disappears. I fume at this stick in the wheel that was supposed to roll us all to the dinner table, but reckon my top won't pop if it's really a "ten second shower" and we eat soon enough. I start cleaning up the kitchen a little and bring juice to the table. I sit down at the table at pour myself juice, waiting for everyone else...

...but my dad's upstairs, my sister's still showering after several minutes, and my mom seems completely oblivious and is happily entertaining my sister's two friends. I sit at the table alone for a few minutes, and notice no one's coming. I move to the adajcent living room and turn on the TV, flipping channels... fidgeting... angry... wondering what the heck. I was also upset about the tuna, the freaking dish I had been waiting for all week which by now was getting cool and stale and certainly wouldn't be enough to split with six people. I wouldn't mind if my sister would have just asked the girls to chill downstairs or watch some TV so Mom, Dad and I could eat, or even God-forbid she just sit with us for ten minutes and then run off with her friends. But no... she sabotaged dinner and kept us all waiting.

Finally I mumble to my mom, in a way that my sister's friends won't hear, that I'm really hungry and want to eat. She looks at me and looks away. A few minutes later I tell my mom a little more assertively and impatiently that I want to eat. She calls my dad who comes down after a minute and makes this whole chivalresque scene about inviting my sister's friends to eat with us and declaring that we need to move to a different, larger table--not the small one by the kitchen. I mumble to my Dad that I'm really upset.

Finally my sister comes up and then my Dad repeats his whole scene in front of my sister and they decide to start moving all the dishes to the other table. I remained in the living room, refusing to cooperate with this ridiculousness, or perhaps protesting the whole debacle over a dinner I helped cook and soooooo much look forwarded to enjoying. Somehow my sister and I have a quick little confrontation in which I futiley state that I'm angry and that she made us wait so long once we were all ready to start eating. But she claimed not to understand and acted all innocent and willing to move the dishes so that we could eat together (with her sudden house-crashing friends included).

After a summer of bending over backwards for my sister so that whatever we do suits her convenience--either eating when its most convenient for her and under her conditions, or setting the table for her so she can always come join us if it suits her whims-- I could no longer contain my anger and decided to protest. I quietly but agitatedly told my dad and sister that they can eat without me, grabbed some linens from the drier and stormed up to my room.

My dad, who for years has been hypersensitive to my sister and hyper-eager to cater to her every desire, stormed upstairs and into my room right behind me. He angrily shouted that I'm making a bit mistake and some other stuff to which I retorted yeah whatever and restated how insulted and angry I felt. But he might have left before hearing that.

A while later my Mom comes up to my room and tells me to come down to eat. I told her stubbornly that I wasn't hungry, but she insisted. I told her one minute and came down three or four minutes later. I found her sitting at the large dining table all alone. The tuna sat there--cold and untouched--with some other leftovers she had warmed up. I sat across from her silently and eventually broke the silence and gawked at the tuna which almost no one ate.

"I'm so angry," I said to my mom. But she sat there bored and silent, looking at me with her elbow on the table and her head resting on her hand. I countered her silence with more silence. I stared at my empty plate and basked in my frustration. For all of my mom's marvelous, selfless, friendly, positive and laudable qualities she has always been vehemently opposed to acknowledging, much less to confronting and resolving, any tension and conflict. Now even her generous and giving eyes made my anger feel illegitimate. Feeling insulted, heck used and stomped upon, after the nights events, I told her that I couldn't eat.

She sat there, saying nothing, waiting for me to eat. I sat there saying nothing, tight-lipped, not even pretending to hold back a smile. I got up and took my empty plate and untouched silverware to the kitchen.

She sat there, saying nothing, waiting for me to eat. I came back and started clearing the rest of the table.

She got up and brought something to the kitchen. "You can go," she said to me. I went back to the table and kept clearing it until everything had either been put in the sink or the fridge.