All the stuff you never knew you needed to know about life in rural France.....and all the stuff the books and magazines won't tell you.

Sunday 20 November 2011

To my sister in law

When putting up a blog, I was aware that it is in some sense a public document, open to the scrutiny of all, so why do I find myself disturbed when I see your co ordinates in the statistic logger?

I went to comment moderation in reaction to the hurtful comments of one person about my husband's health...I don't put up comments from Anonymous because it's either advertising or someone without the courage of their convictions....and I am aware that there are a lot of people who are kind enough to read the blog but who do not comment.
All this is fairly normal.
So why does your presence in the stats log bother me?

After your treatment of my husband in the period leading up to and the aftermath of the death of his mother you have become mute as far as e mails are concerned, no communication whatsoever....so why check out my blog? What do you hope to find there? I don't write much about family, except in passing.

I think what disturbs me is a sense of intrusion....I feel that most blog readers dip in and out, find blogs they like or just want to read occasionally, or read blogs on a subject of interest to them, but whatever the reason for the visits there is a sense of complicity among bloggers.
We are all participating in the same process.

With you, I believe it to be otherwise.

You don't participate...you use.

You look for scraps to feed the image you have of yourself and your situation, to feed your sense of injustice that people are not on your side in your new life, to feed your jealousy of happiness.

I would rather you were happy in the choices you have made and that you did not feel the need to rummage for scraps, but if rummage you must I would rather you rummaged elsewhere.
If you want news, communication, opinions ...be open, send an e mail - a good sight more effective than looking for augeries in the entrails of my posts.

You follow the paths of what you call spirituality....shamans, crystals, Mayan prophecies....but the fruits appear to be bitter.
I would be delighted to hear from you that you had discovered the other fruits....those of

Love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.






18 comments:

  1. Difficult to know how to comment on this one other than to say I can completely understand where you're coming from. I too like openness in everything. This behaviour shows signs of unhappiness and discontent really doesn't it? Very sad when you think of it.

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  2. Ayak, There's a lot going on in her life...she is indeed very unhappy and discontented and I wish she would just be open with people rather than all this sneaking about which is not confined to the domain of this very unimportant blog.
    Something occurred today which just blew the fuses with it all.
    Perhaps I should have removed the post...but I think I'll wait for her weekly snoop.

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  3. My mother always said that if your're doing something that you can't be up front and open about, you shouldn't be doing it.

    SP

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  4. Even when you know people's behaviour is motivated by their unhappiness in their own lives, it's hard to be on the receiving end of the fall-out.

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  5. SP, mother was right!

    Pueblo girl, unhappiness is one thing...underhand behaviour toward others is not a necessary concomitant.

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  6. Oh dear, I hope I hope your Sister in law finds the courage to communicate properly with you and then perhaps, she will be less unhappy, communication is the key because life is just too short.
    XXX

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  7. Dash, I just wish she could be open. This snuffling around in the underground solves nothing.
    I know I'm rebarbative...but not when talked to openly.
    It's the sense of someone spying on my life...or,more importantly, that of My. Fly...which annoys me.

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  8. Fly, I've had the experience of being "stalked" on my blog and website - I know it sounds like a contradiction, that all this stuff is out there publicly, but there are some who do it obsessively and in place of real communication. A sad way to maintain what feels to them like power and control where there is none. I hope your approach, to be up front about it, shakes things up.

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  9. Amy, you've hit the nail on the head. This post is there to tell her I know what she is doing.

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  10. I have one of those and stopped blogging when I found she was reading it because my mil had told her about it. Just felt uneasy giving her a peek into our daily lives. I might take it up again because a remarkable number f people keep checking the blog and it makes me write regularly.

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  11. Sharyn, publish and let her be damned!

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  12. Please keep blogging! I always look forward to your posts uncovering and commenting on the less seemly sides of French society.

    My family read my blog, but that's cool. It keeps them updated, and it's somehow more interesting for me than sending emails.

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  13. Mark in Mayenne, that's how I started blogging...easier than saying the same thing twenty times in twenty letters.
    I enjoy your blog and the photographs...real life in France, not 'the dream'!

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  14. Sorry to hear this. I hope your sister-in-law can get her act together.

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  15. Mary Anne Gruen, far from it! She's been on obsessively since I put up this post!
    She cannot bear to be challenged.

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  16. I've had a response from the sister in law.....not a private e mail, but a comment on this post.

    I would have put it up, except that in guarding her anonymity she breaks mine.

    However the basic message is that the post gave her occasion for mirth, I am projecting my own inability to be challenged onto her and she hopes I am still enjoying the wine and hand cream she gave me as a 'treat' (on her last visit some eighteen months ago).

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  17. I totally get where you are coming from here. Nothing that I can say that hasn't been said by your other fans in the comments above but sending you a virtual hug anyway xx

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  18. Crumopet, thanks! Much appreciated!
    The woman is a poisonous pain in the proverbial.

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