Letting Toxic Family Members Go

How My Vacation Sucked!

Family Is Everything! We all say that, don’t we?

I’ve been away from writing for a few months but I’m back and I’m telling it like it is from my perspective.

My vacation literally sucked and depressed me. I’ve been holding this story in my head for months now and I’m not going to mince words.

Toxic family members can just kiss my ass. I don’t care that you’re getting old. I don’t care that you have ailments. I don’t care that you have depression, and I don’t care that you have excuses for being a bitch! You’ve been a bitch your whole life. Your life is not my fault. The shit that happened to you was before I was even born is not my fault.

You had a hard life, I know. So did I, so did my mother, so did your mother and my mother’s mother and everyone in the fucking world in their own way. That doesn’t give you the right to treat me like a piece of shit because you’re angry with me. If you didn’t want me to come see you then you should have said so.

Be honest. I wrote a book and some shit you said to my mother when she was growing up wasn’t kind and I aired your dirty laundry. Well, I aired all the dirty laundry for the whole family. Bottom line is, if you didn’t want me in your house then say so. I hate when people act like everything is fine but then they get you in other ways.

We went all the way to Israel to see my mother’s s favorite sister. I take full responsibility; it was my idea. “She’s getting old” I said to my mother. “Don’t you want to see her? She won’t live forever.” She was about to turn eighty-two years old that month back in May of this year.

Mind you, this woman has made me cry on more than one occasion with her sharp tongue. Once when we were visiting in Israel she told me that my father is a piece of shit, as if I wasn’t already aware. I was about thirty-five at the time. Just out of the blue she brought up my father for no reason at all. Another time, the three of us (myself, my mother and my aunt) were in Paris having a great time when suddenly she asked my why I didn’t become an interior designer because I took some classes but didn’t finish for a degree.

We were having a perfectly nice evening in a Parisian hotel room eating dinner with some lovely European beer when she opened her big mouth and started talking about how a friend of our family became the founder of Google. As if everyone in the vicinity of the Google founders should all be geniuses. Or perhaps all Jewish children should be a genius in one way or another. Yet, my cousin her son has worked at Microsoft forever and never started his own company or invented anything.

And she wasn’t so kind to my mother when she was young. A quick history here. They’re ten years apart and have the same father and their mothers were sisters. Yup, my mom and her sisters are also cousins. Chew on that for a minute.

Yet at the same time, her dry wit, sarcasm and love of laughter being similar to my own is what’s so lovable about her. Perhaps we’re so similar is the reason we can’t get along. They say what bothers you about a person is a reflection of qualities you don’t like in yourself.

I won’t tell you the whole family history, I’ll just say that it’s not pretty and if you’re truly interested please read my Chapter 1 excerpt of my book, ‘The Life of A Jewish Stripper’.

This trip was doomed from the beginning. Starting with the fact that our connecting flight from BWI, the Baltimore airport to Boston in order to connect to El Al’s flight apparently took off at 11:30am rather than 4:35pm that day without anyone notifying us by text or email that the flight time had changed. Thanks for nothing Jet Blue. Ha! Never again with that airline or the El Al (Israel’s award winning airline which has one of the best securities in the world). I know, I know, you’re supposed to check on your flight twenty four hours before take off, but we didn’t so we were stuck. Neither airline would take the responsibility for the error. Everyone blamed each other and they didn’t want to give us an immediate refund.

No one could get us to Boston our on time to make the El Al flight and the airline doesn’t fly from Baltimore or D.C. And it isn’t as if there’s flight to Israel every hour or even every couple hours. They may have two or three flight a day, if you’re lucky.

Uggh! Day one of my vacation was already sucking. We dragged our suitcases home to my house and contemplated what to do. My mother, the quick thinker found a straight flight out of Dulles airport the next day and for less money than our original flight. What to do the next twenty four hours? I needed a shot of tequila. We were officially on vacation, after all. We went out to dinner and I had that shot or two, don’t remember for sure.

Oh, yeah if I failed to mention, I have a half brother on my father’s side that I had never met who had come from Russia with his wife and daughter just about a year ago, fleeing Putin and his war on democracy in the “New Russia” and Ukraine.

Yes, I came to see my brother also. He had invited me to stay with him but being that I had never met him, I felt a bit awkward and declined. After all, I hadn’t seen my aunt since 2011, twelve years! I was so looking forward to good times with her and laughter. She always had a joke to tell or just retell the same one I’ve heard fifty times already.

But something was different. I didn’t know that she had lost the electricity in her apartment two weeks before that, which my mom failed to tell me. It turned out her cappuccino maker caused it. Of course my cousin, her son thought it was the refrigerator or something else in the kitchen, so he bought her a new one. Yes, my nerves would be shot too if I was eighty one and suddenly there’s no electricity in the house. But again, that’s not my fault.

To be honest, I guess we kind of invited ourselves to come see her. We didn’t really ask is this a good time? Yes, I wanted to go meet my brother and his family. My aunt hated my father, he did some heinous shit to my family back in Russia. Now he’s an old man living in a psychiatric old people’s home across from the beach. I hadn’t seen him since 2003 when he rolled into New York where I was living at the time and practically invited himself to stay in my home, which I refused to even entertain the thought and told him to go to a hotel.

Yes, my aunt had some very strong opinions about whether I should even meet my brother. We have a half sister by another mother who grew up in Israel. She doesn’t talk to either one of us and has made no effort to help my brother or even had a conversation with him in the last couple years.

So, there are three of us, that we know of. Papa was a rolling stone to quote.

Now, I admit openly that I said some things to my half sister that were not kind when she started ignoring me after we became friends on Facebook and she didn’t try to connect with me for a long time. I’m not the keep to myself, quiet type. If you piss me off I let you know and I was angry, I was sad, and I had no right to say the things I said. Those things I don’t like about my aunt, yes I see them in myself. When someone hurts me, I lash out. Am I toxic? Very possible. And did I give her a tongue lashing. I am the product of my environment. What I grew up with for a long time I emulated.

To make a story that’s already long shorter, my aunt was acting crazy. She insisted on sleeping in her armchair in the living room and giving my mom her bedroom and me the futon in the computer room to sleep in. We told her a thousand time that I could sleep on the couch in the living room but she insisted on sleeping in the arm chair. But things went from bad to worse fast. I asked her if she had read my book and she was angry with me and she told me it wasn’t interesting to her. My cousin was supposed to have it translated for her but apparently just read it to her. She told me it wasn’t interesting to either of them and they stopped reading it.

Ah, Eureka! The book pissed her off. She read things she didn’t want to relive, I get it. But it’s my story it’s what shaped me. Not one compliment about my writing. But she insisted it’s not that. Oy Vey! She gave my mother and I a curfew when we had to be home for dinner, when we had to be home at night before she went to sleep at 10pm. We were on a vacation and we were being given rules. Were we in Israel on vacation or Nazi Germany with guard dogs? The only time we were free is when we left the house to go on a trip to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, or go to beach for the day. But regardless of our activities since she has problems with her legs she didn’t go with us and told us we were expected home for dinner by a certain time. I couldn’t even go have coffee with her next door neighbor at night for fear I would wake her when I came back. Even the neighbor couldn’t understand why I couldn’t come over.

It all came to a head when I woke up three days before the end of the trip with an excruciating pain or muscle spasm in my right thigh and couldn’t help but wake everyone in the house because I was screaming from the pain. My aunt told me to leave but when I packed my shit in a hurry and said “With pleasure” she wouldn’t let me leave saying their hotels don’t take people in the middle of the night like in America and I should go back to sleep and leave in the morning. She literally stood on top of me and wouldn’t let me pass and she’s quite a tall woman.

I decided I was too tired to argue and went back to bed. Later that morning when I woke up I found my mother packing her suitcase. Apparently words were exchanged and my aunt had told my mother I shouldn’t be allowed to travel because of the health condition I have. I had blood clots seven years ago in my legs and as a result have nerve damage in my right foot. It doesn’t stop me from living my life. It’s a pain the ass, it makes life difficult sometimes, but I’m alive and grateful. We moved to a hotel right on the beach in Haifa for the last three days of the trip. It was so nice not to have a curfew. I felt so sad that we didn’t stay at the hotel the whole time. It was incredible to be right by the water. As I understood my aunt asked my mother several times what was the point of this trip.

Since we would not be there on May thirty-first for her birthday, I had flowers delivered to her on Mother’s Day though they don’t celebrate it Israel. What a waste! It was not appreciated. Unless we were having a meal my aunt would put on her headphones and listen to news or whatever. She had no desire to converse with us. I know it’s all about my book, I’m never wrong about these things. She was also jealous that my mother wanted to meet my brother as well and went with me to his house for dinner and loved him and his wife. They are so sweet and such a cute couple and you can’t help but love them both immediately. They are unpretentious, lovely and open people.

To end this sad story, my mom as always forgave my aunt and she called her on her birthday when we were already back in the states.

Me, no. I didn’t call her and I’ll tell you why. Before we left Israel when we were at the hotel I called my aunt and told her that I love her and when I asked her if she loves me she wouldn’t answer me and that depressed me. I cried and it felt really shitty to not be told by a family member that they love you. So, I’m done with her. I don’t do toxic people anymore family or not. I don’t want to be like that. And what pisses me off even more is that my mother always forgives her no matter how shitty she acts to her, she always acts like nothing happened and no apologies EVER come from her.

Done! Done! Done! Family or not, I don’t need the toxicity. I am your only niece and you can’t tell me you love me then get the fuck out of my life! It is sad and depressing and I don’t want to be like that if I ever make it to eighty-two.