My sister was in town for business. We didn’t have much time together, just Monday night, but it was fun to catch up in person. We don’t talk as much as we should. We are both tied up in our own lives – her in Chicago, me here in my land of distorted reality.
My sister works like crazy. She is also in advertising. She is a bigwig VP of Account Services for a large national healthcare ad agency. Her life is spent hanging at home with her family (yay), commuting about three hours round trip every day (boo) and working way more than forty hours a week (boo). I think she was pretty jealous that I work way less than forty hours a week (yay). I don’t really have to commute but if I do its 45 minutes round trip and soon to be twenty when I move (yay). I also spend lots of time with my family (yay). And I go on adventures, travel, hang with friends and try to live a very diverse and interesting life (yay yay yay).
My sister is happy. She is choosing her lifestyle, so that is cool. I am happy and consistently trying to be happier by worrying less, loving myself more (insert obligatory pleasuring oneself jokes here) and making sure I’m living the life I want to live. So it’s all good.
Based on our different approach to life, I sometimes wonder how my sister and I are from the same parents. But then we talk and I’m sure we are indeed related. She is smarter than me (and I’m no dummy), but I have way more street smarts than her. She is much more serious than me, but able to laugh at the most inane things like I can. And especially, she can laugh at herself, which is great because I was laughing at her all night long.
She had to make a big work phone call right after she arrived and all I heard was her side of the conversation. I couldn’t believe all the marketing buzzwords and seemingly nonsensical doubletalk and, well, bullshit I heard. Those bigwig agency folk from big markets sure like to show off. Here is one nugget:
“How is the Brand Plan going? Do we need to revise anything? Let’s define the problem and then address it.”
If that isn’t big time management decision making going on right there, I don’t know what is. And then I heard her say, “quick efficacy.” Now that is impressive. If one of my employees said “quick efficacy” on a conference call, I‘d give them an instant raise.
After a couple glasses of wine we were talking about her crazy schedule. She was telling me about her awful commute:
“I got a parking pass for the train. I used to have to park in a remote lot and walk on the side of a busy road. Now I park steps from the train. It’s changed my life.”
Wine shot from my nose. Here I am reading motivational books, seeing inspirational speakers, attending conferences, learning from other people and doing things like getting divorced in order to better my life. For my sister, all it took was a parking pass.
We continued chatting about our lives and the convo turned to money. She gets paid well for what she does and she is admittedly money driven.
I said, “You are making a shitload of money, right?”
She said, “Oh I don’t know. Compared to a truck driver, I guess.”
I have to stop drinking wine while she speaks.
We also had some pretty deep conversations. She was hurt with how news of my divorce went down. I was upset with her for lack of support and for acting like a victim. There is still some tension there, but we fixed things a little bit last night. This has been sitting for two years, so it was good to talk in person.
I admit that I relayed the news to my sister and my parents in a very poor matter. Before I tell how that happened, I have to say that I dreaded telling them. Almost as much as I dreaded telling my wife that I didn’t want to be married to her anymore. I had a way easier time talking about it with strangers and more distant friends. Then I worked my way up to closer friends and then my closest friends from growing up. It gets exhausting to make all those calls and have the same conversation over and over again.
I chose to confide in many other people along the way as the decision to divorce was made final. My sister and I just aren’t that close. We talk maybe once a month and its always very top line. I just don’t choose her to vent or tell my shit. I have others for that. She was upset because she has chosen to turn to me in the past about her biggest problems. I admit I didn’t consider that at the time we got angry with each other when I told her about the divorce. I shocked her and she was upset about that, but in hindsight more so that I didn’t choose her to confide in during the tough times. Understandable I guess. But I have way more friends and support vehicles than she does. She gets that now.
So when I had to tell my sister and parents, I struggled with how. I didn’t want to call them and shock them live. And what if they weren’t there? The buildup to call and then get voicemail would be painful. And having to do it twice to tell my sister and then my parents seemed like hell. What was I supposed to do – organize a conference call?
So I tweeted it to them. Kidding! I texted. No!! Kidding again. I emailed them. Not kidding.
And then the calls came in. My mom freaked. But she recovered by the next day and was supportive. My sister still hasn’t come fully around, but we made progress and improved it last night.
But now we have to worry about the truck drivers.
