I’m tired of the countless years of this.
And lately, I have really seen how different we are now. We connected at an intersection in life where we then chose different lanes. It worked back then. It doesn’t now, and I don’t think it has since a brief stint in 2011…
I don’t really like her, even though I do deeply love her. I’ll always love her - she is like my sister.
But she’s a terrible sister.
It’s agonizing sometimes to watch her. The things she picks are so insane to me. The way she makes decisions and the decisions she makes madden me. They always seem so blatantly and obviously wrong.
She cares what others think too much. She always has.
And that’s coming from the queen of people-pleasing?…
But my want to please made me manipulative and capable. I can get anything I want, quite often, quite easily. I know how to lure people. I know how to stay one step ahead mentally of the vast majority of people and do the thing that will make them like me so that they think I just AM that person and that they ACTUALLY like me naturally.
No, my brain is just faster than yours and wired to please.
I almost always know what to say. I don’t open my mouth if I’m not confident in what I’m saying and the accuracy of it. I don’t try to make others like me - they just do.
But her want to please hasn’t made her into someone who understands what people want. It’s just made her pathetic and clingy and desperate.
She fucking married that loser… like my first one was bad also, but nothing compared to the Brads of the world she dated.
I don’t know where to place blame... In therapy, they say you’re not supposed to - blame is not helpful. But I want place to blame… I want to point my fingers and grip my hair and throw my head back and yell about all the people whose fault it really is. And she would not be immune from the yelling.
Do you know how hard it is to watch someone self-destruct for like twenty fucking years??
It’s her and my brother. They’re weak. And yes, I realize me saying watching their suffering is causing me suffering sounds egotistical as shit, but this is my fucking soap box.
They’re. So. Weak. They draw pity out of your pores like sweat. You can’t stop watching them fumble, and you want to so desperately. You hear yourself groaning and feel yourself cringing and see yourself grimacing. You’re filled with dread when they tell you anything that’s approaching on the horizon for them. You become almost immune to their cycles. You know what’s coming, and you just brace for it and move on until next time.
But you realize no one else will be there if you go. And you can’t just leave them… so, you get busy. You move away, but there are such valid reasons to do so! There is school, and there are mountains, and then big cities and big money and school yet again.
And eventually, I guess you might circle back. I did. I regret that I did. I envisioned it being nice. It wasn’t. If I had known, I would have staid busy and fake and distant. I wonder if it would have worked.
I wonder how my brother felt about me moving to the ville. I wonder if he felt abandoned. I wonder if he even cared. I know I will likely never know, and that’s ok too.
I’ve laid so much to rest, that at this point, it’s a dull ache. The acuteness faded so long ago, I don’t remember what it felt like when it was happening at its most severe. I remember it, but not well.
I wonder what he thinks of my divorce. I know he’s not a fan of my husband now. He only ever said it once, but I know why. I know the events that followed crushed whatever opportunity there was. And I know because my child isn’t the ideal nephew, he’s not going to get an uncle. If he had been an easy child, and if I had stayed in the family, it would have naturally happened.
But he wasn’t. And I didn’t. And my brother has faded away. I can’t fight that anymore.
I can’t be ashamed of my life because it’s not what it was supposed to be based upon their standards. I can’t take on their shame. I can’t adopt a narrative that makes me feel badly because it makes them feel less burdened.
They never saw me. My parents, because I could not show them; they did not want to see and closed their eyes when I screamed for them to look. My brother, because I don’t think he was very interested in doing so at some point.
I wonder when it happened.
We used to be close. I thought. Family vacations with faces full of acne and flip phones making fun of our parents behind their backs and sharing music we were not supposed to own. Sunny days on the farm riding the hot walker, eating shamrock leaves, climbing in hay bales, playing make believe.
We were allies.
But maybe it’s like what husband and I were talking about the other day…
Have you ever worked a job where you worked in close proximity with someone, and objectively, you didn’t like them? But you knew that in order to mentally survive the job, you were going to have to make peace with them and try to find a way to like them, at least a little?
You pinpoint their redeeming qualities. You learn when to stop listening. You turn away, hold your breath, try not to take it all in. And one day when you quit working there or they quit working there, it’s like a weight is lifted, and you can scream to the heavens, “Oh my GOD, I’ve fucking hated them this whole fucking time…!”
I wonder if my brother felt that way about me. Maybe he has not felt close to me since we were those teenagers. Maybe I read it wrong all along.
You never really know what someone thinks of you, do you? Not really.
In my narrative, we grew apart when I left for college, and then more when I went to NC, and then more when he had his accident, and then more when I got divorced, and then more when my husband and I started dating. I think his living with me broke us even in that at first we were getting closer, and then we both self destructed and shrapneled each other upon exit. It was good while it lasted.
And then a massive blow when I cut off mom and dad. TKO.
I genuinely thought our relationship would survive anything. I can’t believe it hasn’t.
Maybe that’s why I keep Mouse. Maybe I just don’t want her to feel like she can’t reach out to me. I want her to think of me as someone she wants to share happy things with, so I let the bad go.
Why didn’t my brother do that for me?
I’m just too much work for him, and it’s not worth it. I think he lacks ability but also willingness. He is lazy. And incapable. But everyone is capable of trying.
I wonder if he’ll tell me when he decides he’s getting engaged. Or if my mother in law will just show me on Facebook.
