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24 February, 2006 - 11:50 p.m.
how about a current one? my brother's getting married.

my mother just called me. i've been sick in bed all day. like i said earlier, i got up around 2, did some stuff around the house, and went back to bed around 4. got up again around 7, and have been tired just from sitting up in bed watching television. when i get sick, it wipes me out. and then i have no patience with anybody.

so my mother just called me, like i said, on three-way with l, the girl my brother just moved in with. i answer the phone and all i can hear is background noise. and i'm already irritated. and then mom says there's something important they have to tell me. so i'm like, fine. just spit it out. and then l passes the phone to my brother. and mom's like "your sister is on the phone" and he's like "so?". and i said that they had 30 seconds to say whatever it was or i was hanging up. and mom's like "your brother's getting married." and i'm so less than thrilled about it. it actually made me feel worse. but i said congratulations and mom wanted to know what i was doing this week, and i said i was sick in bed and that i was helping heather paint this weekend, and she waffled some more and said she'd call me when she had more details.

i feel so Cassandra {"Apollo caused the gift that he gave Cassandra to be twisted, making everyone who heard her true and accurate foretellings of future events believe that they were instead hearing lies."} today. i feel the psychic voice of reason telling me to tell them not to do it. i feel like, even if i said something like that, they wouldn't listen and they'd only resent it.

They've only been dating two months. And they're already living together. And now they're getting married. And she's not even pregnant. And I can't help but shake my head and think about guys that I dated for several years and was glad I hadn't married because of the seasonal changes that occur in relationships... the things you find out about people when you get to know them over a long period of time. Which is why most of my young relationships died around 5 months, and most of my adult relationships have died after a year and a half or so. The things that people hide from you or that you just don't see because you're blinded by puppy love... and then one day you notice and you can't deal with it any more.

But they're getting married after two months. And I am appalled. And the only reason I can think of for doing it is because my brother is a sex offender (consentual statutory, and he has to register when he moves) and there are laws against him living in a house that has any one under 18 in it. So I'm thinking that, if he marries her, then he won't be breaking the law or something. Maybe if he legally adopts the child, he won't go to jail for living with her. Or something.

But there are parts of my brain that just don't accept it.

Like, slow down. You have the rest of your lives. Like, what's the hurry? Like, please don't be getting married to "fix" a problem. And all the other things that float through my head as I see a bleak future of my brother's jealousy ("you were looking at him.") and his tendencies toward rage, and I hope for her sake that he stays docile and doesn't raise his hand to her. And I want to tell her that if he does raise his hand to her, it's not ok. And even though he's my brother and is related to me by blood, she could come to me if she had to. And I don't know if my brother has ever hit a woman, but that's what we grew up with. And I want to tell her to run.

But I can't. Because my family will hate me. And when it happens, it will somehow be my fault because I said it out loud. Because my mother was just so fucking happy because someone is finally getting married (and honey, it ain't me.) and now she can interfere in all kinds of ways and it leads me to all sorts of nightmarish visions of telling her that NO, she doesn't have the right to have her hands in my relationships and she doesn't have the right to go behind my back and discuss things with the people I see and that she doesn't have the right to do the planning for a day that I haven't even thought of. You'd think after five weddings of her own, she'd be tired of planning weddings.

And it makes me tired to think of the fights that we'll have if I ever decide to get married. I hate to think of the power struggles, as she yet again makes every event somehow about herself. She made my graduation night about herself, you know. "that's the mother's night." no. it isn't. that's MY night. I did the work. I'm paying the bills. I did it by my fucking self and I could have been starving (and sometimes, i was close to it) and no one of my parents helped. And god forbid I ever get married. her hands are aching to get a hold on that... and somehow i'll wind up with puffed sleeves and a bow in the back and everything in bright pink and a million guests and debt up to my eyebrows, when all i ever wanted was something small with a few family members. i mean, who likes weddings anyway?

and i feel so bad for my brother and for l... because all the years of trying to drive me insane and to convince me that each new boyfriend was "the one" and "how soon?" and "haven't you been dating a while now?" haven't worked because i'm busy and i want a life and if i ever do decide to get married, it won't be on a whim.

and i feel bad because she's learned the southern way of measuring your worth by the number of grandchildren your kids have popped out... because that's what gets you attention. you get babies and you get attention. and i see that so much in my family that it makes me sick... and all i really want is a career and a little bit of happiness. and if marriage and children find their way to me down the road, fine, but i'll be just as happy in a condo at 60 alone with my books and my cats. marriage and children are OPTIONS, not defaults. and i hate that i have to struggle so much against the flow of the tide just to keep my head above water.

it would be so much easier if i was stupid and easily brainwashed. it would be so much easier if i folded under the pressure. but when have i ever done anything the easy way?

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