Mothers.

Seriously, does every woman on the planet have a problem with her mother? I mean I read it in books, on blogs and experience it all the time with my own mother. I have not been able to have a reasonable, friendly chat with her since I was like 13. Worst part? I think it is because we are too alike. Neither of us wants to concede defaet. But they arent loud drawn out fights about my hair or anything like that, they are mostly based on our 2 differing realities.

In her reality it is entirely inconceivable ( makes me want to watch The Princess Bride now) that each and every one of her 9 children aren't the best of friends. She doesn't seem to comprehend that I am 20 years younger than most of my siblings. This means that when one of them gets married for the 3rd (or 6th, or even 2nd) time I don't see it as one of my sisters (or brothers) getting married. I see it as a friend of my parents getting married. I simply don't feel much family attachment to my most of my older siblings. Is this weird of me? I mean out of 8 brothers and sisters I really feel like a sister to... 2 of them. Both of them are my sisters too. I guess age doesn't really have anything to do with it, one of them being 20 years older than me, it has more to do with our relationships. One of them I grew up with, and has actually been my sister all of my life, and the other really started to feel like my sister when I started baby-sitting HER kids. Which seem weird, in hindsight.

The others, I don't really count as siblingsfor a variety of reasons, the main one being I don't really know them. I mean I know their ages, and for the most part their birthdays ( I at least know the month), but really we don't speak all that often, and the ones I have had good conversations with, it still doesn't seem like they are siblings, because the conversations either didn't continue or only happen when they want to tell me how to run my life. I am going to tell a story now, one that is kind of 2nd hand. Here goes.

My oldest sister (48, I think) was having a conversation with my youngest brother (34 or something) and he told her that he didn't feel like she had ever been there for him, when he needed her. That she had never been a big sister to him. I thought that was kind of sad. Then a couple of years later it occurred to me. He had never reallly been abig brother to me, why should he have had the benefit of an older sister? He didn't seem to take any interest in my life. I remember only 2 times when he did, the most recent being when I was getting married. He invited me out to dinner and then spent almost the whole time trying to convince me not to get married. And since then, I think we have spoken like twice. I think that is really sad.

I don't know what my point in typing this out was. I really don't. If someone could please tell me it would be really helpful.