October In The Chair

One of the only reasons why I keep my Facebook account active is because it keeps me in contact with Middle Brother. We're pretty much all the family that either has got. I mean, I have my father, but that's it. And Middle Brother only has me (he's my half-brother, but we were raised to ignore that fact). He updates rarely and its usually forwards of one kind or another, but they're there and it's a small bit of contact I'd like to retain.

He came over last night because he's moved back to the area and right before he arrived at the apartment, I was struck with the realization that I had not seen him since December. It left me unsteady for a few moments, with a bitter and metallic taste in my mouth.

We hung out for several hours, me and him, the Engineer and the Amazing Larry. Middle Brother sat in the recliner and drank his shitty beers and talked a lot of nonsense about aliens and programs on the History Channel. It was a good time and he left with the two of us making plans for me to visit his new apartment in the very near future.

When I logged into Facebook this evening, I saw that he had "liked" the page: I WISH I HAD MY MOM I TRULY MISS HER TAKE CARE OF YOUR MOM CAUSE YOU DONT KNOW HOW LONG YOU HAVE HER

And it made me cry. Even though it'll be six years in November since she died, we still don't talk much about her. I don't know if it's our family-taught brand of stoicism or our own emotional stuntedness, but we just don't talk about her. Once in a while, one of us will pass a comment about her, but it's always in a general our mom was a little bit nuts, in a slightly annoying and charming way. And whenever it happens, we both smile for a brief time and kind of share a small laugh over it because, at her heart, this was very true.

She could also be a real ball-breaker, our mother. And I won't lie and say that I don't carry many scars. She could be warm, when she let herself and when we, because it's not all her fault, let her. She loved us fiercely and would go to great lengths to protect us. One of the things she said in the lead up to her death was that she was scared. She was scared and worried for my brother and I because she wouldn't be there to take care of us. When she said it, I put my arms around her and told her not worry about us. And while it didn't settle her mind completely, it was enough to calm her.

She loved us. But, at the same time, she was deeply unhappy with how her life had turned out. Even back before the cancer was just the barest thought of an abnormal cell in her blood, she was miserable. Pregnant at 16 and married to an abusive narcissist. Divorced at 23, with two young boys in tow and no skills to survive. Married again to a man she didn't love because her attorney told her to "get married yesterday" because her ex-husband was making noises about a custody battle. A single mother, who initiated the divorce, in that time was not a sympathetic figure. Working an endless stream of dead-end, soul-killing jobs. Failed relationship after failed relationship. Drunk mother. Dead father. All of that and then cancer gnawing away at your guts? Yeah, I'd be a downright cunt about the entire affair too.

So, I don't blame her for being miserable. She didn't have many options. The disparity between her life at 35 and my life at 35 gives me The Fear and the idea of a very similar bullet I am dodging every day leaves me awake at night. No blame and no grudge held, but the scars remain.

Every year, they grow a bit fainter. I look in the mirror in the morning and see her face more clearly every day.

Last night, my brother had himself a good laugh over the thick crop of white hairs I have been growing as of late. I haven't dyed my hair since January or so because I haven't had the money, so my grey has gone dandelion wild. Despite the fact that he is older than me by five years, I'm the one who got hit with the shitty end of the genetic stick. Both of my parents were completely grey by the age of 25. He only has half of the faulty genes I'm afflicted with and from all reports, his own father still has a full head of jet black hair.

Her birthday is coming up in two months. I should go to the ocean for a visit. Labor day weekend, perhaps.

Last weekend, the Engineer's brother got married. It seemed like there had been an enormous amount of years inbetween the announcing of engagement to now, but during one of the speeches at the reception, I realized they'd only been together about two years or so.

I am happy that he is happy, as he is a man who has always had difficulty finding his own niche in this world and someone to share it with. We have told him many times over the past eight years to figure out who he was before he went on any kind of journey to find love, but he never listened. Little brothers rarely do.

And even though I am glad that he has found apparent happiness (and it's with a woman I can stand being around for slightly extended periods of time, which is always nice), the wedding and subsequent festivities have left a feeling of uncomfortable disquiet in my person.

I couldn't put my finger on it all weekend; not until about fifteen minutes ago when I stood up from my aimless internet wandering and went into the kitchen for a glass of ice water. I couldn't place this unsettled, slight sadness and instead, choose to worry at it from all angles like a particularly stubborn hangnail.

And it all boils down to this: I miss my mother. It is September, the month of her birthday, and I am missing my mother terribly. She would have been sixty-five.

It was a vague sense looming so subtly in the background that I have grown so accustomed to that I almost overlooked it. This feeling of absolute loss has just become so intertwined with my normal day-to-day activity that it has simply become a fact of my being, much like the facts of my having blue eyes and crooked teeth. It'll have been five years this November. Five years since she died holding my hand. Five years since I heard her voice and felt her smile. Five years since I was swept under with an overwhelming mixture of heartbreak, relief, guilt, and liberation that hit me like a rogue wave capsizing a tiny boat. I always knew the heartbreak was coming; it is an imminent feeling for anyone close to one, or both, their parents. We are meant to be preceded in death by them, so it's generally just a given. But the other emotions? Therein lies the rub.

I knew my attendance at the wedding/reception would bring a host of things to the forefront of my brain; other people's family affairs always do, as I stand constantly alien within them. Consistently, I am uncomfortable at these gatherings and never know how to behave. My blood-family doesn't have them any more, at least not that I am invited to, and when we did- they were very different affairs. And I am filled with a bizarre envious desire whenever I see someone lavished with attention by their relatives.

This event was no different, in that regard. It was, after all, the first marriage produced within the children of the Engineer's parents and the parents of his brother's fiancee. So, freakouts were plentiful on both sides. I expected that. I did not, however, expect the fleeting shock of narrow-eyed hurt to course through me when the Engineer's mother gave a tearful speech at the reception stating how much she had always wanted a daughter and her joy at how she now has one.

I immediately tensed up (I've been around for eight years; what am I?), then grew very still at the realization that I have always held myself ever so slightly aloof from his parents and made it quite clear that I was not in the market for another mother. The Engineer's mother is a lovely woman who has never been anything but kind and warm to me, but I have always been fidgety at the idea of her, of anyone for that matter, claiming me as another child. I also recognized that this event was entirely about the Engineer's brother and his bride; of course their mother wouldn't be thinking of me. Ridiculous and shame-faced, I thrust my brief hurt away, silly and selfish, and applauded her when she was finished speaking.

I drank a lot of rum, made friends with an older woman who has known the Engineer's mother since high school and beyond, but refused to dance. Public dancing and I are currently not on speaking terms. I sang songs to the Engineer, smoked a metric shittonne of cigarettes, cringed at overly loud music, and accepted hugs from a variety of strangers. A normal wedding reception, essentially.

Throughout everything, there was still that weird little feeling in the pit of my stomach that took me until the small hours of Monday morning to figure out was the lack of my mother. It was uncomfortable; I was uncomfortable. Since my mother has died, and even for a short time before, I have been coping with her non-existence. Every day, I do not have a mother any longer. I am constantly reminded of this fact.

The interesting thing is that when she was sick, I had made a comment in my journal that watching her die of cancer was like watching someone being slowly washed away by the sea. The tide tumbles in, and when it rolls back out again- a small piece is missing. Over and over again, this was slowly repeated until there was nothing left and she was gone from my life. It happened again as I made the apartment into my home. Her belongings, the objects infused with her presence, were taken out in gradual increments. Her couch, her end chair that was hideous but I loved anyway, the bed she only had for four years, her elderly dresser. I put most of it out on the curb for someone else to take and every time, it felt like I was abandoning her on the side of the road. Another tide slowly taking her away, piece by piece.

Now, I've noticed a similar thing is happening with the hurt I've been carrying around with me. The ocean is slowly washing it away. It won't ever completely vanish from my life; the Powers That Be aren't quite that benevolent to give us such a great escape clause. But, over time the edges do wear down and things aren't quite so prickly. It's no longer an open wound; it's a trick knee that aches when bad rain is coming.

The pain used to be bad, so sharp within my chest that it hurt to draw breath. For two years, I walked as the blind undead. Everything I touched that belonged to her sent a hot spark through my fingers. I flinched away from all but the most casual of contacts and connections. It all just hurt too much. The third year, the pain began to slowly lose its hard diamond luster. Fourth year, I was finally able to speak of her death in practical terms and not bawl in the middle of a sentence.

Year five? It's not over yet, but things seem to be following the same pattern. The tide still rolls in as I watch it wash the familiar away.

Her birthday is next Sunday. I've been thinking of driving down to Cape May to where I scattered her ashes. I've gone twice already this summer, but only for pleasure trips. Never alone and never with the express intent to visit. I could drive down in the late morning and stand on the shore, smoke my cigarettes, and watch the waves.

I am, at turns, a caged animal baring its teeth at everyone who happens past and a dancing, spinning top.

The past month has been so incredibly fucked up and insane that I can't comprehend the smallest details. I teeter between soul-crushing lows and OMG EVERYTHING IS AWESOME! highs; odd, even for me and my bizarre cycles.

At a glance:

I'm still very sad over the death of Charlie. I didn't take her body in for a necropsy because I plain just don't have the money. I've put out my feelers for another snake, but I'm taking that slow. I want another scaley friend, but I'm not in a rush. Money, as always, is a factor in this.

One of the cats has fallen ill, Mittens. He used to be as fat as Lunchbox Tinker, but ever since my mother left for the hospital and never came home, he has not been the same. He's a different feline now, which is distressing. The weight got so alarming and his behavior changed so dramatically, that I took him to the vet the other day and received a diagnosis of insufficient kidney function, which in less fancier words basically means that he is in the early stages of kidney failure. Being fifteen years old, he's at great risk of this. Along with diabetes (which Nympho has) and hyperthyroidism (which Misty had). I didn't relish the idea of dealing with another diabetic or hyperthyroid kitty, but I'd take either of those over this. He needs to be on a completely opposite diet of what he had been on and now must be fed in the bathroom to keep the other cats from eating his food and vice versa. He's been on this diet for about a week and I haven't noticed any weight gain, although he's stopped acting so blessed weird all the time. Now it's only part of the time.

My car remains, as ever, an anxiety. The hose was re-soldered back on to the radiator and I was sent on my way to the tune of over five hundred dollars (about $175 of this was for the tow from Trenton). It's still leaking transmission fluid and Lord knows what else. And because of my father's behavior over this (I'm not going to get into it because I'll just get riled up again; needless to say, I don't enjoy people telling me what to do with my own goddamn money), I've been contemplating getting my own car on the road. My own car, with my own car insurance. However, there's a reason why my father pays for everything with the Eldorado: because I can't afford it on my own. There's no way possible I could afford a car payment and an insurance payment. This idea has been backburnered, but I constantly pick it up and hold it to the light.

Work is still work and it still makes me crazy. It's gotten to the point that whenever I'm paged by a certain person who I'll call the Skeksis, I cringe. Or show my teeth to the phone. Or flail around, making obscene hand gestures. I. Hate. That. Woman. I hate her like I have hated no one else before in my entire life. Beyond her simpering buffoonry, there's also the omnipresent specter of layoffs looming over all of our heads. Yes, I've been whoring my resume all over God's green earth.

I've been sick for the past few days. I've had an itchiness all over my face, accompianied by red blotches, and have been suffering through a general all-around ickiness of feeling. At first, I thought it was something I ate on Sunday night because we ordered from a Chinese take-out that we'd never ordered from before. But, the more I examine my symptoms and the more I think about things, I think it's largely stress-related and thusly, largely work-related. I left early on Monday, stayed home on Tuesday, and dragged myself back into the office today. The past few days, I've rarely been vertical and instead, spent a large portion of my time on my couch with any number of cats grouped around me and generally, just felt shitty.

I think I need to start seeing some kind of mental health professional. Problem being, I can not afford the health insurance my work offers. Our lowest, shittiest plan is roughly a hundred dollars. Out of every paycheck. And that wouldn't be the plan I'd pick because it is, after all, shitty. I largely don't qualify for reduced-cost care because, get this, you'll love it: I make too much money. Hah! And I can't even find much information about reduced-cost care on top of that. Lovely, isn't it? I'm still looking; I haven't given up on it and am still open to ideas.

Tomorrow would have been my mother's 63rd birthday. It's gotten to the point where I kind of forget what life was like with her in it, if that makes any sense. I forget and it hurts that I forget. And at the same time, my life is so much easier without dealing with her medical problems that I'm halfway happier without her. And if you think that doesn't affect me in thirty different ways to Sunday, you're sorely fucking mistaken. Guilt for days, I tell you.

So that things aren't all doom and gloom, I went camping this weekend with the Engineer and Miss Ella and Tony, which was quite lovely. Even if the skies opened up on us Saturday afternoon and drenched us to the skin. I laughed my way through the entire spectacle. At one point, we had just finished moving the tents out of The River Runs Fucking Through It and Tony and I glanced at each other. Proceded to crack the fuck up for about ten minutes straight, barely able to breathe from laughing so hard. Later, I got to burn things and talk shit. Two things I am excellent at doing.

Class tonight. Stress Management. Irony does not escape me.

This is the division/classification essay I wrote for my English Comp class. My professor suggested I should think about entering it into the English department contest because he was quite enamoured with it. Joanna and I jokingly refer to it as the "My mother is a whore and she made me into a whore!" essay, despite the fact that it has nothing to do with my mother being a whore or with me being a whore (well, maybe just a wee bit).

( This Woman's Work )

The perfect rainy day.

Earlier, someone caught me standing at the edge of the office porch with my face turned up against the sky, catching the rain in my face.
What are you doing?
Enjoying myself.

Last night, I laughed so long and so hard that my sides hurt and my head began to ache. This was during a discussion concerning the merits of human beatboxing. I had made the declaration that the worst news could be broken to me with nary an eyelash batted if someone were to beatbox right before.

Lately, I've been laughing a lot for too long and far too loudly. It makes me forget the the nearness of November and the tightness in my chest. I constantly sway back and forth between unflappable exuberance and numbing desolation. Honestly, I can't say which one wins the fight more often.

This afternoon, I was outside smoking a cigarette when a little spider dropped down on its silk right in front of my face. One minute, empty space. The next, wee spider hanging there. Normally, a surprise visit like this would leave me cowering under the bench and whimpering. Spiders, whom I enjoy from a distance, are generally not welcome when they drop in for a wee chat so quickly and with no warning. This one was tiny and such a break in my day, that I smiled and puffed a little breath at it, to see it swing out in an arc slowly and then climb back up its thin rope.

On Sunday (07-09-06), my good friend rhiann31 is going to be riding almost 60 miles (on a bike, the kind what pedals) in support of the American Cancer Society. One of the people she is riding in memory of is my mother.

It would be rocking if anybody could donate any amount of money to this, her webpage for it is here. Passing this on would also not be kicked out of bed for eating crackers.

Thanks!

It's over.

The eldest brother is out of our lives. Again and, I assume this time, for good. I sat at the kitchen table and clenched my little hands into tight fists, nails digging bloody half-circles into my palms, against a roaring tide of rage as he called Middle Brother a fuck-up and and unjustly accused him of being a liar. So many times, I opened my mouth, in an attempt to shut things down, but something in the back of my head caused it to snap shut again without voicing any of my objections.. Middle Brother was standing his ground and holding his own. This was his fight and I was only peripherally involved, if that at all.

I had expectations of this extending into the wee hours of the night, like the last fight did. I continually stole glances at the clock, watching the minutes tick slowly by and refusing to leave the apartment because I feared for leaving them alone together. The Engineer wouldn't leave either, much to my discomfort. One's family, on a good day and in a normal group, can be slightly embarassing. My fucked-up family excels at embarassment because it seems as if they become even more insane and puerile whilst in the public eye.

At eight forty-five, I rubbed the bridge of my nose and lit a cigarette. Thought to myself that if this shit wasn't over by nine-fifteen, I was going to bust out a referee flag and call the match. Then, at nine o'clock, it screeched to a halt when I was barely paying attention. Before I knew it, the words, "...and I want you to leave. Now." came out of Middle Brother's mouth and Eldest Brother was being ushered towards the door with a slam and the locks being snapped into place. I heard him in the hallway, profanity and self-righteousness being spit at the door.

And then he was gone.

And I'm bothered by this more than I've been realizing. I spoke of it a small bit last night to the Engineer, after Middle Brother had finally gone to bed. That my entire life, all I ever wanted was one of those families who, you know, speak to each other.

I know better than to expect normalcy, no one gets to ride that particular free bus, but I'd like a sembalence of closeness, at the very least. I wanted a family that got together at the holidays. I wanted a family that called one another, even if it was to shriek at angry hyper-sonic levels once in a while. I wanted a family that could be in the same room, at the same time, and not have too many uncomfortable silences. I wanted a family that gathered for more than just funerals.

Apparently, this was just a bit too much to ask. I knew it was hopeless, this obscene wanting of mine, but it was there all the same. And when our mother died, I had nurtured a small and fervant hope that maybe this time, the three of us could be our own unit. That we would band together in the face of our grief and, somehow, work things out between us. That, at the very least, I could have a small tribe of people who shared blood with me. Other than my father, my brothers had been the only part of the family to associate with me. One side are too remote and removed from my upbringing to really give a damn about me or mine, the other side just plain want nothing to do with us for reasons not of our making.

Middle Brother and I had basically dropped any animosity towards Eldest Brother, in a good faith effort of extending the olive branch. But, it looks as if he just didn't give a damn about either of us. Ever. As always, it's about him. His pain. His shitty upbringing. How people treated him. Who has done him wrong. How he's put himself so out there for everyone else. And how no one has ever done the same for him.

We are both so, so tired of it all. And it hurts like fucking hell to shut him out of our lives once again. Only this time, it's not his choice like it was before, but ours. My emotions are warring in my head; a huge and swirling mass of sadness, anger, pain, disappointment, disgust and relief. I can't sort through them all without turning into a puddlemess. This hurts. And the hurt pisses me the fuck off. Why should I be hurt that a fucking junkie turned his back on us? Why should I be unhappy that someone of that low character wants nothing to do with Middle Brother and I? Why do I care? What difference does it make, honestly?

I don't want that sort of person in my life, so why am I so fucking upset over this?

Above all else and for the first time since she died in 2004, I am straight-up glad that my mother is dead. She didn't have to witness the filth spewing from Elder's Brother's mouth at Middle Brother and she also doesn't have to deal with the semi-unrelated VC Andrews-sized scandal I received confirmation of last night after all of this or any of its predicted and expected fallout.

All of this would have broken her heart, much as it's coming close to breaking mine.

"I'm sorry." I said to Middle Brother last night, after the smoke and debris began to settle.
"Don't be. What're you sorry for?"
"I'm sorry because I know you wanted this work. And because I wanted this to work. And it didn't."
He ducked his head and wiped his face, as is his habit whenever he doesn't want to show any emotion.

Throughout today and last night before, I was wobbling on the knife-edge of hilarity. Maybe more like hysteria if you look at it a bit closer, but I just wasn't noticing the difference then.





Make your bed and now lie,
just like you always do.
You can fake it for the papers,
but I'm onto you.
I'm onto you.
I'm onto you.
I'm onto you.
I'm onto you.

Dear eldest brother:

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a VICTIM.

My upbringing did not make me one. My lack of opportunity didn't make me one. Being poor didn't make me one. Moving around a lot and not spending more than five years (and that was the longest stretch) in any one place didn't make me one. Our mother getting divorced twice didn't make me one. Not being guided and encouraged during my formative years didn't make me one. Coming from a broken home didn't make me one. Being a drug addict didn't make me one. Being a latchkey kid didn't make me one. Having a mental illness didn't make me one. Our mother being promiscuious didn't make me one. Our mother getting pregnant at sixteen didn't make me one. Being told that I could be whatever I wanted didn't make me one. Not being forced to go to college didn't make me one. Making the right decisions too late in life didn't make me one.

And none of these things caused you to be a victim, either. You did that all on your fucking own.

You seem to have this idea that our mother was a completely wretched person who never thought of anyone but herself. Sure, our mother wasn't a storybook depiction with freshly baked cookies after school and gentling prodding to finish your homework. Nor was she even halfway to that. She was loud-mouthed, had a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush, drank in bars, slept around, got married when she shouldn't have, made bad decisions, spent money too easily, and was entirely too selfish to be raising three children. However, she was not a bad mother. She was human and did what humans do. Some of her choices were far from the best, but she loved the three of us more fiercely than you could ever fucking know and sacrificed her life and her dreams to raise us.

Did you know that she wanted to be an archeologist? I didn't think you did. You don't know jackshit about her. You don't know jackshit about our brother. And you certainly don't know jackshit about me.

All you know is your own bitter pain and deluded jealousy. Yes, there are people in this world who have the things you want. Our mother did not impede you from having them. You did. Free will is a marvelous thing, you asshole. Telling me that it doesn't exist changes nothing. You made your own decisions. No one pushed you into them.

Not only that, but your life isn't that fucking bad. You have your own business. You have two incredibly intelligent children who are excelling in college and will hopefully go on to be far better than you. Your life is not "wasted" because you don't have a summer home on the beach and the ability to jetset away for vacations twice a year. Your childrens' lives are also not wasted if, when they are completely grown, they don't have these things either.

And our brother's life isn't a washout because he never got his high school diploma. He's content with the kind of person he is and struggles to further himself in his career. He's smarter then you, sometimes even smarter then me and I'm the smartest out of the three of us. He may not have all the things you so dearly wish you had, but he's not an unhappy or covetous individual. Unlike some other people I could name.

Furthermore, we were not ABUSED in any way, shape or form. And to say so is ridiculous and asinine. Do you even know what abuse means? Are you able to see far enough past your own nose to realize exactly how much our mother really did for us?

You sit there and have the gall to ask me why I've gotten so defensive about this. Why am I reacting like this? Because our mother is DEAD. She died, her body riddled with cancer, in a shithole nursing home with me holding her hand to my lips and our brother sitting at the foot of the bed. Where were you?

Where were you when our brother and I got the news that the mass in her small intestines was a malignant tumour and it had ruptured? Where were you when she was told that if she didn't get a second round of chemo in the next handful of months, she'd be dead before the year was out? Where were you when she shit herself in the car on the way home from the oncologist's because of the chemotherapy? Where were you when she puked up everything she'd finally been able to force herself to eat? Where were you when she cried in the middle of the night because she was so scared? Where were you during the countless blood tests, PET scans and surgeries? Where were you when she realized she was never going to walk again? Where were you when she realized she was never coming home?

The woman who gave the three of us life is gone forever and you have nothing but bad things to say about her? Count yourself lucky that I only raised my voice slightly above speaking level and said 'walk it off, you fucking nancy'. Be thankful that all I did was go into a rant about how none of us are victims. Be fucking glad, eldest brother of mine, that I didn't break an ashtray over your thankless skull.

You tell me that I'm a carbon copy of her?
I'm proud of it.

I'd rather be a strong, hard-headed, selfish woman who's made too many mistakes than a piss-and-moaning, self-righteous, sour old man who can't see the forest for the 'could have' and 'should have' regets that he continually conjures up. I can only hope that you eventually pull your head out of your ass because I don't want your children winding up holding hatred and disdain for you.

Despite how angry you make me, I don't hate you. I used to, but not anymore. I've moved on from that.

That moving on thing? I suggest you try it. It's amazing how one's mind clears when one doesn't walk around with so much regret and bitterness in their heart.

Your sister,
tara