Because you have to

I was recently telling a friend how when all the girls in my family got engaged, there was this weird rule that we all had to immediately take up needlepoint as a hobby. It was very spinster Jane Austen, only on a beach at the Fountainbleu hotel in Miami on Passover. It was a circle of females with their needlepoint projects, that were usually of a Judaic nature. Your girl had negative interest. That was considered rebellious, and was met with surprise from the committee of judgmental aunts and cousins. One cousin, who carried her needlepoint supplies around as a badge of marital honor, asked me what I'd start working on, since I now had a ring on my finger💍. Er...nothing...?

While I appreciate any artistic hobby, this just didn't speak to me. What was confusing was that it seemed to be this bizarre initiation process into wifedom. I didn't want to get married just so I could do stupid shit like that. I was crazy in love and wanted to be intertwined with this person. I didn't get engaged so I could do arts and crafts. That's how my family operated though. It was a large family that moved as a pack at all times. There was most certainly a pack master whom we all had to bow down to. If you didn't kiss the ring, there'd be major consequences. Fun, right?

As with most large, wealthy families, there were constant power struggles, rife with competition, jealousy, rules, fear, intimidation, and totem poles of authority. Every single decision was made by a committee of relatives, ranging from the minor to the major. My aunts and uncles all weighed in on where I attended camp, high school college, who I dated. I resented this tremendously, as any normal teenager would. It was astounding to me that my parents and I couldn't make those decisions without the approval of a Greek chorus. As parents, my ex and I don't give a rat's ass about what anyone thinks about the choices made for our children. It would never occur to us to consult with an outside party. This surely contributed to knowing my feelings and opinions about my own life were unimportant; it mattered only what the committee of elders thought. I never had a voice about anything. Anytime I tried to plead my case, it was shot down immediately by people who knew nothing about me, but who somehow had complete authority over every aspect of my life. Decisions were collectively made over what entree to serve at our weddings (veal chops) to which doctors we should see to where we should live.

A couple of my cousins dated boys from divorced homes. This was met with horror since divorce was considered a blemish on the paper write up of family values. Belligerent uncles tried to break up those relationships, using the guilt card of "what would your dead grandfather think?"  There was no divorce in Polish shtetls. There were also no gay people or equal rights for men and women. Any white collar crimes were, of course, permissible since those weren't public. It was very confusing as a kid to watch grown ups behave so nastily to one another, yet know that these people were counted on to govern my life. They neither knew me or cared to, yet I was told to defer to them for everything.  It made no sense and I had no choice in the matter. That was the way it was. We went on vacation together, even though there'd be fists flying at the table. Ugly words were served as freely as tap water. BUT, if you didn't attend/participate/comply you'd be destroying the holocaust surviving legacy of our grandparents. Years later, a therapist and I would spend years dissecting this notion of a pack mentality, of  strength in numbers. "No matter what, we stick together".  This made sense finally. All those miserable years of having to comply with whatever edict was being issued by the Don, with no possibility of just pulling away. Anyone who expressed the slightest show of independence, was told we were crazy and would destroy the family. The verbal and emotional abuse was nothing compared to being shoved into a gas chamber. You take it because you have to. You are nothing without the rest of us. You'll die out there on your own. You will fail without our instructions. You will attend this high school, you will date this boy, you will wear this to the party. Even seemingly small things turned into a tactic to maintain uniformity and control. There was no democracy. And if an elder were to make repeated comments about your teenage chest, you took it in silence because said comments weren't being  made in an underground tunnel in a ghetto.

I finally was able to identify all the feelings I had as a child of being misunderstood, adrift, unmoored, and ignored. To this day I react with knee buckling fear if I think I'm a "bad girl". These are reactive patterns I'm still untangling. For the first time in my adult life I am certain I will not die alone out there. I am not crazy. I am not bad. I won't ruin the gestalt if I follow my truth. I am a really good person. A good woman, not a bad girl. My instincts as a kid were right; those people don't know what the fuck they're talking about. I don't want any of their lives. If they'd consider that crazy, then color me batshit. At one point I was told (yelled at) that at the age of 19, I was somehow responsible for the rift that was slowly forming cracks in the family foundation. This was actually screamed at me en masse at a bridal shower. Years later a couple cousins tried to apologize, no doubt to alleviate whatever guilt they had. I was not interested, and I remain uninterested. When I see most of those relatives, I pass by them as if we are total strangers. There is no room in my life for toxicity, family or otherwise. This was the most expensive permission I granted myself. It took ten years of therapy to understand I wasn't bound to these people. Prison, prostitution, physical abuse, and emotional torture were all worth it if you wound up on a beach needlepointing a challah cover.

I remember being in fourth grade, and an aunt didn't like the outfit I had worn to a ballet we'd gone to see. I was ten. My mother had obviously bought me those clothes. She told me I "looked like I was going to a roller skating party instead of the ballet".  If anyone ever spoke to my kids like that, I'd rip their face off. I literally know no one that speaks like that. I don't keep company with "those kinds of people". This aunt was later on tasked with teaching me how to use tampons, again at the damn Fountainbleu on Passover. As in, live demonstrations. Until we got it right.  You can imagine how comfortable this was, and how fabulous it felt at dinner that night that every family member had been apprised of my menstrual achievements. Nothing was private. The committee knew everything. I am in the acute minority of having had an issue with this. I don't recall if there was a discussion of what brand of tampon I should have used, but I imagine there was. It takes your past to ultimately define your present and future. It took my childhood to define my parenting. It took having zero loyalty, support, kindness, and understanding to being in a place of only surrounding myself with the right people. Unapologetically. Because you have to.