Sorry, can't do that, Walt

 I can't remember if I have identified my oldest brother and primary sexual abuser by name here before. I'm pretty sure that last week was the first time to do so at Lifering's main email list. I also identified by name for the first time Tim, the third of my three older brothers, also an abuser after first being abused by Walt.

Ten months or so ago, Walt told his world, including me, that he had pulmonary fibrosis. It's kind of like an adult-version, progressive version of cystic fibrosis. Except that there's no new miracle drug.

He inquired in St. Louis hospitals about the possibility of a lung transplant. Apparently that's a no go.

So, early this month, Walt, after saying he almost surely has less than a year left (pictures confirm — he looks like dad about a year before his COPD death), asked for forgiveness for being "a poor brother," for not protecting me, and for otherwise nonspecific acts and actions. Nonspecific. Note that.

Eons ago, he copped to me and to sis about sexual abuse, only to say that his ordination as a Lutheran minister was proof he was "beyond that " now.

Well, here's my response to his request for forgiveness.

== 

Walt, the delay in response wasn’t deliberate. Rather, it was trying to figure out exactly what to tell you.

I could have given you a facile, a glib, or a multivalent response that would mean one thing for you, and anther for me. Some parts of what I see may actually still do that. That multivalent response would be, “whatever you really think you need forgiveness for, you have it."

The deeper reality is that, more than the cliché of “I was another person then,” that was another life then. Marie said five years and change ago that “this would have been dad’s 90th birthday” and I had forgotten all about it. Forgot that this year would have been his 95th until I started typing.

That’s an entirely different life, in part because my life today would have been different had that been different. Various overt and covert sexual abuses, physical, emotional, and religious abuse, mental illness in one parent which I recognized by or before I was 10 years old, mental health problems with the other parent which run on that side of our family for generations, and more, all made that life what it was. 

Within that, whatever you really think you need forgiveness for, you have it.

That’s an entirely different life for me in another way.

A few months ago, you asked me to pray for your outcome whatever the result. Well, I’m a secularist. I don’t do that. It’s not because of any animus toward you. It’s just that I don’t do that.

Life in general is massively contingent, but, I don’t think that either you or Tim protecting me from anything, or anything else in your actions or his, likely would have changed that part of who I became, although it might have. Since life in general is massively contingent, I don’t know for sure.

That said, since I am a secularist, per that “whatever you really think you need forgiveness for, you have it”? To use a medieval Christian term, if you are seeking not to die “unshriven,” you will have to find that elsewhere. Between the two of us, Lutheran pastoral confessional office / Catholic confessional booth / AA “fifth step” laundry lists haven’t been further discussed. We had brief long-ago communication about that.

“Closure” — and its value and worthiness — I know as a student of psychology to be more myth than real. Beyond that, personally, I never got it from dad, knew I never really could get it, and, still afraid of his anger decades after childhood, never did push that hard. Mom was too mentally ill — not her modest-yet-growing dementia but the mental illness she already manifested when I was growing up, mainly — to even understand that she had behaviors and actions from which any of us would have wanted to seek at least a degree of closure.

Ultimately, “closure,” to the partial degree it’s possible and of value, is an inside job. And, life has myriad scales of gray and ambiguity. I’ll leave it at that.

 ==

So, he's hoist back on the petard of his own ambiguity. I took neither the high road nor the low road but rather a sideways road. 

Looking a bit more critically at Grandma G.

 Several years after my parents' divorce, and especially after she decided to start going by her middle name, my sis started taking a more critical look at dad's family tree and family history. And, especially as our No. 2 brother anointed himself as guardian of dad's family heritage, my sis started doing that more with mom's family tree, especially with Grandma G.

Now, I'm distanced enough from both sides of the family tree that I don't need to do any heritage guardianship, and can also look skeptically at things.

The biggie to me always starts with: Why did mom take so long to get married? No. 2 is: Why did she marry someone younger than herself?

She was 26 when she and dad got married in 1955, in the latter half of the baby boom era. And, while not totally "old maid," yes, that was several years later than average.

The age difference? Dad was 16 months younger than her. Again, not normal for back then.

Plus, mom was a TWA stewardess back then. Back when that was a big deal, and women had to meet weight requirements, and then, still got dumped by the airlines in their early 30s. Just on the looks angle, why hadn't somebody picked her up?

There's the added factor that dad got cold feet and looked at backing out, after officially proposing. Mom's parents said: Oh, no you don't. Given that dad was eyeing going back to seminary, beyond broken engagements in the middle-class world being a big deal in general, it would have been a ginormous deal with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

But, why, if he didn't really want mom, did they insist? With TWA looks and all, was mom psychologically not marriage material?

Before the time I was 12, maybe already at 10, just possibly a bit younger, I knew I didn't want to have kids when I grew up because I thought mom was mentally ill. As an adult, I pegged it as schizotypal disorder as a best guesstimate.

Since most mental health issues, especially personality disorders, are as much or more nature than nurture, what was mom's childhood background in the G home?

I also find it interesting that Grandma and Grandpa G never had a second child. Yes, it was the Depression, but? Grandpa was a St. Louis cop, and may have already made detective by this time. He never lost his job. Grandma's family had a small amount of money already at that time, I think. Not rich, but "comfortable" to some degree, unless they lost all of it.

So, was Grandma unable to have a second child? Or just did not want to, and was vehement about that, and stood up to Grandpa G more than mom did to dad? If it was psychological, was there some sort of competition for Grandpa's attention as mom grew up?

Dad is still dead

 But sis felt the need to remind me on Hucksterman Central that today would have been his birthday. It was to talk about some better memory at her church.

She said that his birthday prompted memories of childhood from some visitors, and from our brothers, which in no way did she directly connect with dad's birthday either.

I said I'd totally forgotten about the date years ago and politely added that I didn't need reminding in the future.

==

And, it appears I broke my foot off in it or something.

She made a comment back a couple hours later then apparently deleted the post as I get the "unavailable" from Hucksterman.

I was polite about it, and before I said what I did at the end, I first said that I was glad she got a better memory.

That said, I think she sometimes assumes ... no, I FEEL as well as think she sometimes assumes that I frame and/or process and/or psychologically react to all of childhood's traumas that we largely shared (even if not specific incidents) in the same way.

I don't.

Of course, she has also assumed that Walt made me an atheist, as has Tim as part of his blame-shifting. IIRC, and I seem to have deleted the email she sent me, and the draft of the response I was writing to her (unless that's an auto-deletion of older drafts by Microslob), though it's mentioned in another post here. I think she thinks dad was responsible, too, not just Walt.

==

I might have been a little blunt, but I wasn't rude. And, really. I've moved on. I remembered Dad's 90th birthday anniversary a year ago, and Mom's 90th before that, and think I had NOT remembered regularly for at least four-five years before that. 

Actually, the paragraph above is half-wrong, I'm reminded, by looking through posts. I didn't remember Dad's 90th until after she reminded me, per this.

I hope to remember none of their birthday anniversaries before their 100th, and would be fine if I don't remember that one, either.

Fuck you, Homefries

 This is in part taken from a "journaling letter" to him and in part the background to it.

Homefries, No. 3 of my three older brothers, and No. 2 of my abusing brothers, sent a group text a month ago to me, my sister, the other brothers, and other family and friends. He's been furloughed from his oil and gas industry outdoor sales job for a couple of months now. (I was going to post his actual first name, but eventually decided not to.)

Saying he didn't want to be a "goldbrick" or similar, and talking about all the "other people" he thought were, with expanded unemployment bennies and such, he said he was thinking about taking a courier type driving job, even if at near minimum wage and having to Obamacare on health. (He's still getting bennies, plus unemployment-furlough pay.)

Homefries is the most Trump Train of my three brothers, and the closest to a full-on racist, having called Obama a "blackie" when talking to me, and presumably worse elsewhere.

Well, right after this text, visiting the dentist for the first time in many years, I found out I needed the stump of one tooth pulled, likely another, then a root canal and other things. For a variety of reasons, I don't have dental insurance and haven't. 

I refused to text Homefries back at the time because I didn't even want to cosign his Trump Train virtue signaling bullshit. But, my new medical status led me to the "journaling letter," which is now excerpted.

===

Dear Homefries:

Just fuck you. 

Years and years ago I accepted your non-pology for the abuse, indeed, what was even a non-admission of your sexual abusing me, when you said you regretted not protecting sis and I from Billy Bob (the oldest brother) as an actual covert admission.

No more.

The virtue signaling crossed a line.

First, given your "Blackie" and many other things, I have little doubt who you thing these "other people" are. That's not just because of your words, but because the oilfield industry tilts heavily toward racist white people in its employ.

Second, as far as goldbricking, start iwth Trump and his his family.

So, again, shut the fuck up.

Third, you work in an industry that sucks heavily off the federal and state teats.

Fourth, it's also heavily exploitative of our land and planet, even if you're a climate change denialist.

That leads to the intellectual and personal side.

First, you work for an industry very exploitative of its employees.

Second, you're 61.

It's not easy finding better jobs without a college background.

Related? You've got a bad back already from a driving-heavy job background. And, you want to continue that for less money?

Back to the moral side. 

As I set here staring a boatload of dental work in the face, your virtue signaling also has a degree of personal offensiveness.

I'm still not replying to you, still not co-signing your bullshit.

===

Update, Nov. 4: Turns out Homefries took the job. I don't know for sure if it has O-care or "bennies." I briefly acknowledged his text saying he'd taken it. Didn't realize it, but he is only using his late wife's phone now, so he had to go to "his" phone to get it.

Update, Dec. 3: Also, as far as people "not wanting to work," should I, in a dying industry, ever get downsized or whatever again, and because of age and dying industry, have extra trouble finding work? If I'm eligible for the federal 99-week extended unemployment, and it still exists, I'll take it.

I hated college, too

Not as much as grade school, junior high or high school, no.

But, in hindsight, I hated St. John's to some degree.

Not just "had regrets" about the college and career path I was "steered into," which I've had ever since I escaped the fowler's snare.

But hated. More than disliked. Hated.

Just popped into my mind June 5, and I decided to do a journaling-type blog post about it over several days.

What prompted this was looking at Marie's friends lists on Facebook, and the number of St. John's girls who I thought were diffident at best, stuck-up at worst. None of them seemed "relatable" to me because ... I was a runt who had zero relational skills and a life crushed by sexual abuse by brothers, covert sexual abuse by mom, and a few sexual putdowns by dad, along with one instance of sexual competitiveness and other things.

I wasn't bullied by guys as an albino wolf. But, no girls "hit on me." None.

Brenda and Debbie did at Gallup. Cathey in her twisted way at Hobbs. And what's her name, in a sick way, the lesbian manhunter in Mineral Wells.

And that's it.

Maybe, without the outwardly expressed anger — and it wouldn't be at those girls, ladies women — that, in addition to the "be married to the church" idea, or maybe even as a subset of that idea, is why seminary was appealing.

That's not to say that my young adult development might not have been worse yet at a state university of 3,000, let alone 10,000.

On the women, maybe, just as boys saw me as the white wolf to be bullied as a kid, girls, then women, saw me as the white wolf to be rejected. Maybe they recognized that I had some subconscious fears, in part because of mom's covert abuse, plus feeling "dirty" otherwise.

Sidebar: Dad would have been 90 on this date. I totally forgot about it until sis mentioned it to me. It's progress that I didn't even remember it. When he died and I cried, I missed what I wish he could have been. I missed still being afraid enough of him to not make that clearer. And I missed "closure," at least to a degree.

But, I also missed that that past couldn't be undone. I still miss that today. And that's all.

My brother, the Lutheran gun nut

Having just read a pretty good (but not quite great) 2017 biography of Martin Luther, as I was finishing a review of it, I went nosing around for other reviews. I then, eventually landed on another, 1980s, Luther bio that I knew I needed to read.

Among the reviewers was a semi-familiar name. I googled it and "Paul McCain" became more familiar as president of Concordia Publishing House. I then, among links that brought up, eventually saw one for a Facebook group called (no, really) "The Armed Lutheran." Shock me that my oldest, political wingnut, Lutheran pastor primary abuser oldest brother is a member.

But he is.

I don't think Walt's probably bought any guns since what he got out of the division of Dad's property. Rather, this is likely virtue signaling first.

It's a "virtue" I could do without.

Mom would have turned 90 today

My mom, as regular readers of this space may know, was a problematic part of my life.

By the time I was 12, if not earlier, I had come to the conclusion that she had some sort of mental health issues. In more adult times, I recognized this was neurosis level, not psychosis. But already by 12, I saw it as bad enough that I didn't want to have kids, lest I pass on some genetic bad seed. (I later doubled down on that for various reasons related to my mom and dad.)

Mom also engaged in what an adult group therapist called "covert sexual abuse." This was primarily done through her getting ready for work, when I was in puberty, with her bathroom door propped open and her partially nude.

Years earlier, when my older brothers were in puberty and before my parents divorced, she would have the bathroom door shut, but yet unlocked, while doing the same. And, they opened the door and pushed me in there more than once. (With 1.75 baths in a house of seven people, the bathrooms were in regular demand, and mom knew that, too, aside from my brothers doing this.)

I don't know what all was behind this on mom's part. But, as shown by the reactions of my brothers, it was a form of sexual abuse and it had its fallout.

Some of this may be related to her early adulthood.

My mom was a stewardess for TWA back in the 1950s, when they were called "stewardesses," hired specifically for their looks (and usually fired for the aging of their looks by their mid-30s) and TWA was one of America's top airlines.

So, she "had it," if you will.

My mom was a little more than a year older than my dad when they got married. And, at age 26, she was getting close to "old maid" age for the height of the Baby Boom. And, my dad had tried to break their engagement but, in those days when engagements were considered halfway tantamount to marriage, mom's parents raised holy hell and dad's parents said, tagging along, "man up."

So, had previous men seen something in mom's personality that dad was now catching? Dad had seen her as a "catch," physically in general, and perhaps to prove something about his level of manhood to his dad, and even more to some of his uncles.

So ... he bowed his head and moved forward.

(By marrying each other, their "bad seed" didn't spill off onto others. Instead, it — in both genetic and nurture forms — hit the five kids they had together.)

About the time of that covert sexual abuse, mom divorced dad, claiming he was trying to force all of us kids into religious careers. Given that this was after all my brothers had graduated high school, and that she never fought for primary physical custody of my sister and I, this didn't add up in reality. (As I later found out with a stolen college application, there WAS a fair amount of truth to dad doing this, but, still almost none as far as why mom divorced him.)

And so went the rest of my life's connection to her, really.

Dad's anger was at least something tangible. Mom often being an emotional and psychological vacuum was just that — a vacuum.

I'm reminded of the long-ago animal psychology experiments with monkey babies who could cling to a mother-like piece of cloth for nurture even if that meant undergoing deprivation of other physical needs.

If not outright emotional abuse, it was emotional neglect.

I think she bonded somewhat more to my sis as the only daughter. Sis certainly reached out to her. I'll venture there was, at least in early years, emotional bonding of some degree to my brothers. (That said, per mom's beauty focus, there was competition there, too.)

I never felt that.

One time, I felt actual help from her above the age of 8. One other time, she was in horror at physical abuse on my from dad.

Otherwise, she was a smotherer and an infantilizer of me the few other times she tried to do something that probably seemed like nurturing loving.

No wonder that I wanted to escape both parents, not just dad's anger, in hindsight, the one time I tried to run away as a kid.

Today? If mom had a living spirit, I would mutter "namaste" as a benediction and a call for it to get afterlife help, if needed, rather than an acknowledgment of divinity. I can't even do that.

I need to keep doing it for myself.

Goodbye, mom, and diminish, memories.

The Puppy, Part 2

The reference is to this previous poem about an incident in my life from the middle 1990s.

THE PUPPY, PART 2

I’m more of a man than you, dad.

I killed the puppy

When it returned

From wherever you took it,

Unlike you,

Who couldn’t do it

With the puppies in Flint

You couldn’t immediately get rid of.

I proved it

To my self

In my mind

I’m more of a man

Than you, dad.

I was sad

But controlled it.

No tears.

I was angry

It took too many shots

Before the puppy

Stopped moving

And was truly dead.

But in it all

I was more of a man

Than you, dad.

Even as

Your innuendoes

And your put-downs

About me

Being less of a man

Less sexual of a man

Rang in my brain.

Violence, not power

Is the ultimate aphrodisiac

In too many minds.

A dead puppy

Is now humus

Across a quarter-century

Of time and space.

And across that stretch

I have let go a little bit

Of the perceived need

To prove myself to you.

If funerals are for the living, I shall not attend

If funerals are for the living, what then when the living, or one of the living, doesn't want to do to the funeral of a dead relative?

My Uncle El died a couple of days ago. My dad had the one sister and no brothers, and my mom was an only, so I have just him and my Aunt Marguerite as aunts and uncles. The funeral is Tuesday. I could surely get off work, but I am not interested.

I semi-swore to myself after my mom's death, at her funeral, that I would never need to see my oldest brother again. I put the issues of deaths of siblings out of mind as being decades in the future, barring accidents or early cancer or similar.

But, I forgot about El and Marguerite, and now El is dead.

And I don't want to go, and not just because he's is surely going to be there.

I also semi-swore to myself that, other than for possible courtesy visits to church when visiting my sister and her minister husband, that I never would set foot in a church again except to attend a concert or other artistic event.

I have no desire to go there, and, at a minimum, to be a hypocrite, and, at a maximum, be proselytized by Marguerite, or her daughter (both former parochial school teachers), or my oldest or second-oldest brothers, with the likelihood from greatest to least being in that order. Years ago, Marguerite sent me an Easter card that, in not so few of words, said "You know it's true," about fundamentalist Easter beliefs. A religious funeral among conservative Lutheran Christians is only likely to bring that all to the surface, not to mention that, pre-deconversion, I had been to her church umpteen times and some oldsters there may still know me.

No desire.

If funerals are for the living, I'm not going.

I then, with this adapted from handwritten journaling, thought about a poem. I had been thinking about writing one this afternoon. Hadn't sat down to do that.

Then, just after finishing up these notes, this extended haiku started to work its way out.

Death is for the dead
And life is for the living.
So don't fence me in.

Better yet, I won't
Fence myself by attending;
We're all better off.

Namaste for all —
A word that might well offend
Some others itself.

I touched dad's cold skin,
Satisfied that dead is dead
And shall remain so.

Schnittke's Requiem
Challenges old conventions;
Death is chaotic.

Emotional wounds
I shall not give, nor receive.
They will still result.

We will drift further.
I accept that is the price
Of preservation.

Unconscious sisterly motivations?

I'm starting a vacation at the end of this week ahead. On Saturday, I'll be in Phoenix, with sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew.

I'm closest to them of any family, because of what she and I went through together, and because she pushes religion much less than most the rest.

That said, she wants me to stay over Sunday morning. To hear my niece sing. In church.

Sorry, but no. First, I think my niece has some musical talent, but, she's not budding potential opera star. And, if I stay that late, I miss half a day at Joshua Tree, and it's almost not worth it unless I spend another day there.

Plus, while she does restrain from pushing religion on me ... unconsciously, I think her worries about my soul, or whatever, are more than she might consciously recognize.

With our parents' deaths, I don't have to see my oldest brother any more. I also don't have to go to church at all for religious-connected reasons any more.

And, it's not big, but, yes, there's a small bit of resentmentness in the back of my head.

My family of origin steps up its hypocritical preaching at me

Old readers of this blog, or my posting on secular recovery websites know that I'm a PK, and that most my family of origin is in church work careers, or married to those who are, or both. And me? I'm the atheist black sheep of the family (with a graduate divinity degree myself).

Oldsters also know that I'm a "survivor." Within the family — an incest survivor.

==

Anyway, my aunt, my dad's sister (retired Lutheran parochial school teacher herself) has "preached" at me off and on over a decade, mainly via Christmas and Easter cards, as discussed here. Her daughter has done so off and on again on Facebook, and occasionally by email.

And now ... the younger of my two abuser brothers has started in. With the sidebar that he's still never admitted that. He has offered a backhanded apology in the past for not stopping my older brother. And now, he's offered a backhanded apology for anything else he might have done, while talking about Walt, my oldest brother, still as though he were the only abuser. He wrote me a six-page letter about this, in part a follow-up to him "outing" Walt to some family members last fall, as I discussed here.

That said, there was plenty of specific "other stuff" Tim has done even if he doesn't want to admit to that. Like getting me to steal from my sister's piggy bank. Teaching me how to shoplift. Introducing me to pot. Watching a friend of his give me white crosses. (Thank DOORKNOB I didn't get hooked on speed.)

I'm certainly not perfect. And I surely have bits of hypocrisy in my life. But not like that.

(My oldest brother, years ago, gave a backhanded admission of the abuse, but then said the fact that he was a minister was proof he was "beyond that now.")

Six page letter of preaching from Tim, the younger of the two. I have zero contact with Walt since both my parents' funerals. And, will certainly now lessen the degree of contact I have with Tim, too. I mean, I was so screwed up I used to think I had abused my sister!

Just needed to vent a bit, as part of a mental "fuck off" to him. And moving on.

If I am EVER that hypocritical, and you see me in person, please shoot me, have me arrested or something.

==

As for Tim, the younger brother? If he's seeking some sort of absolution, as I think he is after his wife's death last summer, I have none to give. With Walt, with no contact with him, there's no old sore getting picked at again. But with Tim, in that sense, it's worse. He's being some degree of hypocritical about our childhood even while preaching at me today.

Add in that I'm by far the most politically liberal member of our family too — including that all three brothers, especially first and third, skirt close to racial lines, or even push beyond that envelope at times, and I have little reason to want to talk to them for that reason.

All I want to do, as the brother who makes the least money of any in the family, and the one who had the most of childhood life and development stripped away from him, is survive a few more years. I want to survive a few more years fiscally, even as I work in a dying industry, to know that I'll have no problems getting to the Social Security finish line. After that, I know I can further detach from my family, because I won't even have any dire begging financial need at that point. Give me two and a half, maybe three more years.

I may finish venting by writing one of those "never to be sent" letters. Otherwise, for his consumption, I'm ignoring him now.

More family of origin issues

Two months ago, I noted that the younger of my two abusive brothers had sent out a semi-truthful circular letter to my aunt (my dad's one sister) and another sibling.

My aunt, a parochial school teacher, years ago used to say she was hoping for my conversion, in Christmas, Easter and birthday cards.

That had faded away for a few years though.

Until this year.

I got that message in my birthday card a month ago.

Fine enough. I have some childhood issues related to her, anyway; they include trying to be a bit of a surrogate mother after my parents divorced, and especially after my dad moved to St. Louis, where she lived. I don't think this was as total of an effort as another sibling thinks, but I do think there was something to it. And, she, like dear old dad, I think wanted to see all of us kids at least consider religious vocations, so there's that. Certainly she, like dad, knew of my science interests and aptitude and didn't encourage it.

Back to the birthday card.

While saying she still hoped — and prayed — for me to accept Jesus, etc., there was NOTHING about Brother No. 3's letter.

The more I pondered that, the more angry, for me, I got. She and Brother No. 2 both like to "manage" family history and perceptions, and this is clearly another example of that.

I'd stay an unbeliever just to spite family perceptions, if nothing else.

Sorry, Auntie Em, but we're no longer in Kansas. And, if you don't want to talk about that letter, to the degree it is truthful, then let your grandkids be in some kind of danger around Brother No. 1.

Feeling a bit empty

It's been a week since my sister-in-law died. I cried a week ago Saturday, when I got the news. Pinch-hitting at a temporary job, on the road, that turns out will become permanent, I didn't have much time, or mental energy, through last Friday.

I thought that, when I got back to what's "home" for one last week now, that maybe that would change. But, for a variety of reasons, like worried about getting the first edition of the paper out on my own on time, with it being paginated at corporate HQ (the whole process is new for me) and other things, I've been a bundle of nervous energy and other things.

Plus, there's worries about the move itself, getting ready to go on vacation not too long after that, and more.

I otherwise simply feel empty. Maybe I'm just a little emotionally fried, and friable.

That may change, soon enough. Let's hope so, and that it's for the better.

It may take a while, though. As I blogged a few weeks ago, May was the 10th anniversary of my dad's death. Brenda's death and, especially in the early years of her marriage to my brother Tim, her almost adoring take on my dad, has brought that to mind again too.

Family frustrations

First, let me say that this particular family member has been very supportive of many of my needs, including, years ago, coming to visit me when I was wigging out at a new job with some anxiety issues.

Second, I don't know if they're my one blog follower, but I'm going to write anyway.

The issue is that they went through almost all of the same family environment as I did. Perhaps less on some particular types of abuses, perhaps more on some, but, overall, about the same.

We all react differently to family-of-origin abuse, based on the degree to which we got different results in the genetic pool, on inheriting emotional tendencies and affects, etc., as well as pre-natal epigenetic tagging in the womb and more.

That's react differently both in how strongly react, and what specific reactions we have. That's part of the angle here.

For instance — and part of this may be general genetic or epigenetic heritability, and nothing to do with the abuse, but surely exacerbated by it — I am a BIG "space" person.

And this person knows that to some degree. Maybe they don't recognize just how deep it is, but they' know it to some degree.

That's why I get frustrated when, if they're traveling more than an hour or two straight, whether cross-regional, cross-state, or interstate, rather than turn on a radio station, or have some CDs in the car or whatever, they call me to be a boredom filler as much as anything. A mix of trivial, and rumination — rumination which I probably should "honor" more, yet, try to figure out more productive ways to both protect myself and prod them onward in growth as well as offering support — can run an hour. Or more. Like 90 minutes.

That leads to the bigger issue.

I'm not saying I was affected worse than them. Or that I was affected not as much as them.

That's not the issue.

The issue is that I still don't think they realize how much they were affected. They've gotten some help in the past. I think it's been more than surface-level help, but I'm not sure how much more than that it's been.

It's ultimately their problem.

But, not just their problem.

To the degree this leads them to want me to be some of the things above, it becomes my problem, especially as it interacts with my own "space" issues.

Yes, there are times where I can lament, a bit, being alone so often. And, there are even times when I feel lonely, and feel sad about feeling lonely.

BUT ... I'd like to, ideally, address that more on my own terms.

Some of that loneliness, like intimate relationship loneliness, may never be fixed that well. I know that, even as I lament it. I'm not "damaged goods," but I have had a damaged life. And, my current continuation of bouncing around small towns doesn't help.

But, ultimately, that issue and how I deal with it is mine. And, I've already recognized that, good intentions aside, actual help from elsewhere may not always be available.

Between all this, losing my current job with a company sale of my newspaper, but landing on me feet with another job from the old company and other things, I'm probably going to be a huge ball of stress off and on for a few months.

I'll deal with it the best I can ... and primarily looking to sobriety friends first, a couple of other friends after that, then family after that.

Changes and transitions in family

I have a family of one, myself. However, for reasons of shared past and other things, I've long been closer to my sister -- a fair degree to a lot closer on serious issues -- than to any of my brothers. And, I consider my brother-in-law somewhat the brother I never had.

They moved to one part of central Texas about the same time I moved to an area less than 150 miles away. Then, 7 months later, I moved to just about 35 miles away. So, for almost two full years, I was over at their place (my small town had nothing special to attract them here) about every Saturday, and occasionally on a weekday.

I've often called my niece and nephew, their kids, the kids I'll never have. Without pontificating, I gave my niece a "growing up" letter in her card, and long with gifts, as she became a teen earlier this year. And my nephew? I've tried to have fun with him, including teasing while hoping I've not been overdoing things.

And now they're gone.

They moved a week ago to Arizona.

In some areas, I wasn't tremendously close. Matters religious vs secular, of course. But, they never preached at me, and in fact, my brother-in-law, a minister, gently tried to deflect a few probing comments by my nephew, 9, over the last months. And, while they're overall conservative, they don't trend from partway to fully wingnut, unlike my brothers.

It will probably take a week or to, especially a couple of Saturdays of trips over to where they lived, where I'll still do some bigger-city shopping, bigger-city library usage and more, then realizing that ... "oh, it's time to head back home" and it's not "let's drop by for dinner," or "what are you doing this afternoon" to all sink in.

Having their presence nearby, in a small town that's not just a small town, but a still-shrinking one, with a high rate of rural poverty and a fair degree of parochialism, and stresses over my job here in the newspaper biz, an industry that I still can't get out of, was a bit of soothing, a bit of destressing. And I don't have that any more.

So, it probably will take a few weeks to sink in. A couple of Saturdays.

That will probably include the realization that, on my end, even to the degree I compartmentalize my life, I didn't talk to them on some serious things as much as I could have.

Little round balls ... family of origin thoughts

LITTLE BROWN BALLS

I told my sister once that we weren’t a family when we were growing up.
Nope. Not a family. Not at all.
If by family, we mean not just white picket fence stereotypes but also harmony, communication and caring.
Of, sure, we ate all our meals together, but that was a surface event.
Mom talked about her work, her coworkers — one in particular — and other minutia of that social circle.
Dad talked about church parishioners, sometimes things in town, and other minutia of his circle.
Neither made much effort to enter the other’s circle, with a husband-and-wife version of Alphonse and Gaston playing out every night at the dinner table.
And certainly, neither one reached out to any of five children-siblings at that dinner table, not like Ward or June Cleaver.
I will not offer a simile to soften a metaphor.
We were seven individual balls of shit,
Not behind a white picket fence of outward family nicety,
But inside a swirling white commode of separate lives,
Or so it seems to me.
Although I still have trouble with expressing my emotions
As an adult, with hindsight, I look back and see one of my childhood “roles” as the family emotional sponge.
Maybe that’s part of why I have trouble expressing my emotions today.
Shit stinks and disgusts.
And a self-conscious ball of shit that “knows” it — that believes it and feels it — is probably going to hurt a lot, even if not self-conscious of it.
But flushing the mental toilet doesn’t flush all the memories. Or beliefs. Or perceptions. Of what life seemed to be.