Good Deeds

In my childhood, one was taught to not draw attention to one's good deeds. Because if one did, one would not receive a reward in heaven for them. And that was the ultimate: the heavenly reward. So, seeing as I have dubious thoughts on God, let alone a heavenly nirvana, I am going to shamelessly plug my good deed for the day.

I have this SIL. She is not the kind of person that I would seek out as a friend. There's many things that she does that I do not approve of or admire. The more I get to know her, the more I don't really like her. But she's family. In fact, she's my husband's twin sister. So I have no choice but to put up with her and no way do I complain to Significant Other. I put up with a whole heck of a lot from her by the way. My hubby knows her for what she is but chooses not to confront her and basically plays to her pretty much.

Recently said SIL has done a string of things that have really pissed me off. Royally. I won't list them here because it's just not worth wasting breath on. A lot of things she does are petty slights intended to wound. And wound they do but if you give word to the hurt, I feel it's somehow giving her a small victory. So most of the time I do my best to ignore her.

Thursday evening she called me up and said that she was going to have surgery on her knee the next day. She wanted my husband (her twin brother) (who also has a phone, mind you) to pick her up afterwards and then take her somewhere Saturday and basically to play nursemaid. I'm sure she had an agenda by calling me instead of him but I quickly cut her off and handed the phone to J, who just happened to be sitting there (note to self: contemplate the possibility of small miracles). There's so much more I could write about this subject but let's just close it with saying the whole incident did nothing to allay my pissed-off feelings towards her.

Of course, being raised in above-said religious tradition, my guilt-feelings are overly developed. I started to feel guilty that I was feeling such..... dare I say the beginnings of hate..... no, that would be too much. But intense dislike. Definitely intense. So I sat down and made her a get-well card and cooked her some cookies. Of course I made J take it to her. And that folks was my good deed for the day. I feel slightly better about harboring such ill-feelings towards a family member. Like I can hang on to those ill-feelings until the next guilt-unburdening ocassion rolls around.