Family and vacation

WARNING: Long, and probably more than wants to be heard here.......

Wow........where to begin......maybe this isn't right to post, but as I'm sitting here in a car dealership waiting for my dad's car to get repaired, here I am...

I'm the oldest of 6 (3 boys, then 3 girls). I'm in Dallas visiting along with one of my brothers/his wife/daughter, a sister/her son (7mos), another sister/her son(3mos), another sister, and another brother. The sisters all came down from Utah together in a truck (wanting to bring home a piano that's been in the fam for a while). The 2 sisters husbands couldn't get the time off work, but they would have if their schedules would have allowed it. We all came into town for my mom's wedding and are all staying at my dad's, which is usual since he's got lots of room for all the visiting kids (pre-marriage on Sat, mom hasn't had room to accomodate anyone). Yes, some of us would (ME) stay at a hotel just to lighten the load/maintain our sanity but family is fun to be around......right? lol.....

Mom's wedding went fine, and all was well with us helping set up the ceremony and all sorts of stuff (we've done that at my 2 sisters weddings that were last year, so we're getting lots of practice). Everything was relatively stress free and going well........until Sunday.

Sisters dynamic is......unique? Brief synopsis: older sister (27yo) is very condescending to people about her opinions, middle sister (25yo) is mouthy (stabbing comments) and thinks that she's able to be as angry/moreso angry about others interraction as the 2 primary parties involved, and youngest sister (23yo) is pretty much in the middle of both of them in terms of her hearing from each of the others about the other, but also has some issues with both of them of her own. In and of itself, people have issues with people and that's not an uncommon thing.

There was a fight that happened in the morning and caused there some be some tension (thank you dad). On the way home from church, oldest sister (OS) asked dad why the anger in the morning when middle sister (MS) throws up "why do you always bring up the past (blah blah blah)" to which OS then starts getting it from the youngest sister (YS) in the car creating the typical 2 on 1. I didn't know about this part until later, but OS then leaps from the backseat (Expedition) into the front seat and pins MS against the window and is starting to brawl. Dad is driving and has to seperate the two from what was going on. (Dad knows he was wrong to induce the tension in the AM and was talking calmly about it with OS, when MS and YS jumped in and escalated)

When the OS came in the door at home (me and middle brother stayed home) she walked up the stairs fairly calm and i asked how things were then she started yelling that MS and YS were flying home and she was leaving immediately. I go in and she's crying and angry so we talk for a bit then I decide to get her out of the house so we go to Home Depot (had to get some heavier duty straps to secure the piano tigher). Me, youngest brother, OS, and her boy (3mos) go to the store so things can kind of simmer down (SNL comes to mind.....simma down nowwwwwww......anyway).

Get back home then I decide to try (still unaware of the extent of the issue in the car) to get all sisters in a room to talk things out. This attempt ended within 10 minutes with oldest sister with baby in hand bolting out of the room after convo turned into yelling, mouthy MS calling OS crazy (repeatedly) and doing what she could do escalate the situation and YS sitting there with a look of awe like "WTF". OS ends up in another bedroom screaming and yelling about stuff and eventually things somewhat calm down and I'm in there talking to her about the ongoing stuff between sisters, then also the resentment/history with dad that's totally been non-addressed for YEARS (I've talked with her about it for a while, but she's never stepped up to have the convo or type out the email of things she ultimately needs to say). I asked her if she wanted to have me there to talk while she was here in town and she was ok with that so dad came in and we had a VERY good 45 min talk about things (usually this type of 'talk' would end within 2min with dad walking away or starting to do something while you tried to do the talking.......denial is a beast). The end result was OS/dad having an open dialogue and telling the other that they will be more open/honest and OS asking dad to talk to MS and YS about stop getting involved with the relationship between OS and dad and since those 2 were trying to work things out to ultimately stop throwing it up in her face every time there's a disagreement/fight between OS and dad (valid point). From the initial thing in the room with me and the 3 girls to the point of dad and me/them all together was probably over an hour or hour/half.

In the room then are OS, MS/son, YS, dad, and me. MS for about 10min used son to ignore anything being said (usual response, whether with son or alone) and finally things started to be talked out (give me example of what your complaint is, etc etc). MS then makes her mouthy comment about OS being "uncivil (something to that affect, though I can't think of the exact word)" and within seconds, OS is basically tipped off the bed hitting MS (NO ONE excuses the physical outburst and OS knows this). MS hands son off to YS, and in that time dad was pulling OS back, I got to MS and had her pushed away (though she's 150 pounds lighter than me, she had me going backwards for a few) and we finally got the two totally in different rooms.

After about 20 minutes of placating everyone and trying to keep people apart for as long as absolutely possible, youngest brother (YB) (a very short fuse and typically always running a full barrel of explosives) gets up in peoples faces and dad tries to tell him to leave the situation (OS was packing, MS was looking for flights back home while on the phone with husband basically chanting OS is "crazy" or "psycho," and YS was holding MS's son). YB turns anger at sisters towards dad and rages against him for throwing him out (me standing somewhat inbetween) and he finally goes out of the house (he's only home at this point because dad's allowed a week stay while family is in town.......whole other story). MS/son, middle brother/wife/daughter went to the airport in the morning and MS said she never called OS crazy directly, but rather the overall situation. Her version of reality is very bizarre, but historically she truely believes whatever she wants as reality when the truth is absolutely different.

I can honestly say that I would have NEVER thought that something like this was going to happen, let alone on the weekend that we were all in town for mom's wedding and especially between 2 relatively new moms. I'm sure mom doesn't know anything about it at this point hopefully (still on the honeymoon), but THIS is the type of thing that results in me saying that I will NOT do family time every year, but instead ever 2 or 3. I talk to everyone individually all the time, so it's not like I'm totally withdrawn from them, but this type of stuff is (obviously) abnormal and some of them REALLY need to talk all of this out.

So.........all 3 of the sis's are back in Utah (same area pretty much) and we have Christmas to figure out, which was going to be in UT at OS's house with mom/new hubby, dad/wife flying out there to arrange seperate Christmas' with each of us (sounds fun, right?).

Maybe this will allow some of y'all to think that things aren't quite so bad at home.......or stress that unresolved issues CAN/WILL build up and eventually blow up (OS heard that from me at least 10x) if not handled at the time.

Resentment/anger isn't worth hanging onto, and if nothing else, empty your emotional 'cup' regularly so YOU can maintain your sanity. No one is going to want to talk with you based on your 10 years of past anger that you never attempted to resolve. You can't be liable for someone else's actions/choices, but you can do whatever in your power to keep YOUR levels to a minimum whether they opt to participate in that resolution or not.