so I got a Christmas card from my sister today
Not the teaparty sister with cancer now in remission; the other one. The one who, 25 years ago, announced that she hates me, has always hated me and will always hate me. Don't say anything; don't do anything. There is nothing you can say or do. After years of therapy I know it's not you, it's me, and my sibling rivalry. But I'm sick of dealing with it.
So I stopped calling her and sending her cards, etc., not out of anger or hurt, but because I figured she didn't want to hear from me. Not that I wasn't hurt, and shocked, but I dealt with it in my own way and got on with my life. She had set me free from the family. I had worshiped her, and tolerated much abuse from parents and from her to keep her in my life. No need any longer, and ties quickly withered and died.
7 years later, in 93 or so, I got a call from her law school; she'd defaulted on her student loans. The next year I came home one day and found a cryptic message on my answering machine, 'Hi, it's me. Just wondering how you were doing." It dawned on me then that I'd only ever heard from her when she was in financial trouble. Suddenly I understood why she always ran so 'hot and cold.' My best friend when she needed money; rest of the time kindly go to hell.
And then the cryptic phone call last year, with the message, "Hi, it's me. Please call me at xxx. Thank you. Bye." Which it turned out was not for money but to let me know my teaparty sister had cancer.
From my sister with cancer, I am told she has a horse which she boards out and now needs to sell (no market) or give away (good luck there, too). I am also told she's been telling the rest of the family all these years that she follows me on the internet and 'is afraid she's not doing very well.' I am told she has a farm with 17 acres and a barn but no fencing or fencing but no barn.
I don't know how to respond to her. She doesn't acknowledge our last conversation at all. The card says, 'I think of you often and hope you are doing well.' There is no reference to love, or anything like that, so I expect she feels the same about me. I'm not expecting apologies or anything like that. Seriously, if she hates me then don't apologize for it or burden me with it. But what does she want or expect?
To be honest, except on the extremely rare occasion that she unexpectedly pops up in my life, I stopped thinking of her long ago. When she does pop up, I'm left wondering....why? 
= new reply since forum marked as read
Very helpful. 
I have this problem where people who decide I'm the solution to their problems don't accept "no" for an answer, generally until I've been driven to the point of screaming, bellowing rage. I'm trying to learn to say NO in a way that they understand that NO means NO without being driven to that point. Otherwise, because of my long fuse it wastes a lot of my time and energy. And I suppose because of the craziness out there, there's more than usual these days. I'm juggling 3 at once right now. It's very frustrating.
