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21 February, 2006 - 1:51 a.m.
juxtaposition.

So, as some of you know, I went to see my brother on Saturday night. It was the first time that we'd hung out since we were very small children and the only time I remember him talking to me like I was a person. My brother and I are two very different individuals and we each chose a very different path. Mine? Well, you've seen mine from my writing. Good grades, books, boyfriends, college, masters, career. I chose the path of enlightenment through education in my attempt to make the world a better place and to help people find better ways of being. My brother chose a path of turmoil and struggle, of continually making bad decisions that lead him in and out of jail, though a felony, through addictions to crack and marijuana (and sales of each), and to be a year and a half older than I am, and to be starting over yet again with nothing.

I've held a lot of anger toward my brother inside throughout the years. More than most of you know. I blamed him for forcing me to look at pornography with him at age 8. I blamed him for getting me in trouble after he stole things at age 9. I blamed him for the gun pressed to my temple by one of his "associates", who thought I knew where the drugs were at age 16. I blamed him for forcing me to learn how to drive as he vomited up his drug overdose at the age of 15, and I tried to get him to the hospital as fast as I could. I blamed him for the time I came home and his snake was loose in the living room, or the other time when I came home and turned on the tv after school, and realized after about 10 minutes that the tv wasn't there and that I'd aimed the remote control at an empty space in the entertainment center.I blamed him for my missing cds and the onset of what could have turned into OCD, as I intentionally placed items on tables to see if they'd be moved (see the penguin statue in Misery... it always faces south). I blamed him for sleepless nights and for anxiety and for not being the kind of brother that would hang out and pick on me and yet we could still do stuff together.

It's been a tough number of years since he and I had anything in common except a mother and a fucked-up childhood. He never wanted me around and made that abundantly clear. I was more than rejected by him. I was unrecognized as a person, which is worse.

I always referred to my cousin as "the brother I never had".

And now, here he is, inviting me over because he got a place with his girlfriend (who I really like) and her 4-year-old daughter (whose fishie was "sleeping" after she took it out and played with it and would "wake up" tomorrow and feel better). And I had no idea how to wrap my brain around that concept. My brother wanted me around. My brother made an active decision to invite me into his life. And I had no idea how to cope with that. It's a very emotional issue for me. So emotional, that I had a panic attack on the way down there. My heart was pounding and I couldn't breathe and I was crying and I just had no idea where to find my footing. I seriously flipped the fuck out.

And I got there and I'd brought him the 24-pack of bud light that was sitting under my kitchen table since my graduation party and we hung out while the steaks were cooking and I was looking around, absorbing everything and interacting with him and it's the first time in my life he's ever been friendly to me that I can remember. And we laughed and talked and told L (the gf) some of the fucked up stories about childhood and laughed about most of them.

And I was watching sort of with my third eye, you know? And seeing how they have absolutely nothing. They have the loveseat that matches my couch. They have a crate with a tv on it. No table in the kitchen. No other seating. I sat on a laundry tub. They had no shower curtain. No bed. No dressers. No dish drainer or dish towels or pots and pans. They had a baking sheet, on which our steaks were cooking. They had blankets tacked to their windows. And it became so clear to me how different our lives really have been, though we came from the same womb and suffered the same failures of parenting. My brother could have been part of the yankee family, but he made a choice not to follow rules after being told of the consequences of his actions. My grandmother, as an employee of the court, could not have her grandchild out smoking on streetcorners at age 10 when everyone in the 1-mile-square town knows everyone's business. And two roads diverged in a yellow wood...

I am so heavy-hearted when I think about the choices he could have made, but I know that there's nothing that I could have done to change the way things happened. There's no sense in fighting demons from the past and indulging in "what-if". He made the choice to keep smoking and stealing and then he chose to transition into drugs. He made my path easier by showing me exactly what not to do.

I'd forgotten over the years exactly how not-around mom was during those years. How dating my stepdad was more important than being home for us. How she missed my brother's graduation with his GED because she wanted to go on a trip to the Grand Caymans with my stepdad, and if you have to ask the graduate if it's ok with him, then it must be ok because you must not care about going to it anyway. How her failure to be home on a regular basis meant that all kinds of stuff was going on in and around the home. How her absence lead to some serious shit in both our lives. How it felt like she was trying to be something she's not when she was with him. How it felt like we were being left behind when she was moving into her new life. Her constant inconsistency as a parent meant that we had no rules and no boundaries and how, when we moved into a house with him, it was so hard to deal with the power struggles because I was so used to making my own decisions.

Though I hate the word, I realize how "blessed" I've been over the years and how well fate and karma have treated me (though not without my own sacrifices in exchange). Sure I suffered and I suffered plenty. But I found the strength to get through these trials and still be standing at the end of it. I never folded to the pressures of abandonment. I always had my yankee family to give me a reality check or support or even a shoulder to cry on. I always knew I had somebody. I look around me and I know I'm nearly 26 and, yes, I'm unemployed, but I have two degrees and I have nice things in my home. I have furniture and electronics and the internet and curtains and a mostly bug-free home (I'm having a tiny pest control problem in the kitchen... crumbs and all that. ick. i've been spraying, though.). I have a pretty comfortable existence. I have nice linens on my bed and clean towels and art on the walls and tons of books and dvds and cds and video tapes.

And they have very close to nothing. And it breaks my heart.

So, today, I brought them a dish drainer and the little rubber thing that makes the water not go all over the counter when you're doing dishes. I brought them a tv antenna and a twin feather blanket and some cups and some candles. And I talked to people about getting them things that they might need. Like, when I get a job and get a futon, dad will come up here and get them the couch that matches their loveseat. And my grandmother will find them things while she's packing to move. And I told him to talk to dad and our aunt in georgia. It sucks to start out with nothing. Even if things are not new, it's nice to have things to meet your needs.

I don't know. I know that I don't have money to give them and I don't have money to buy them things. But I have some things that I have laying around that I can give them. And maybe (if I know you in real life) you do, too. Or you know someone who is going to throw stuff away or donate it to goodwill or something. Maybe instead of trashing it or donating it to someone you don't know, maybe you could let me know and I'll take these things off your hands and give them to someone that I do know who is in need. Or maybe you have community resources that can help point me in the right direction.

As much as I joke about making $9000 last year, at least I didn't have to start over.

He's trying. And, though it was inconvenient and unnerving, I made the trip and I think we started our own process of starting over. I hope so. I always wanted my brother to be a part of my life. I don't really know what to make of the whole situation just yet and I think it may take quite a lot of time to figure out exactly what I'm feeling. I do know that I'm not going to turn him away and that I can't let old demons choose my path for me. There's going to come a time when the generations before us have gone and all I'll have then are my siblings and my friends (and a family if I decide that I want one), but I'd rather our mother saw us be friends during her lifetime.

I know that the past is gone. But I believe in starting over.

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