That was an interesting dream

President Obama was at some end-of-presidency event, maybe a post-presidential one. I was there with my dad, who eventually kissed him, not in a gay way, but a Middle Eastern greeting way. Then, my mom popped in the picture and I introduced her to Obama. (Both parents died before he became president, compounding the unreality.) Then my sis came in. Not sure at all where this dream sequence came from.

Deep thoughts, deep emotions

It's been more than four months since I've written here.

In large part, the second part of that has been unavoidable.

My arm was broken in a car wreck on June 10. I've been meaning to sit down here for a while, but, getting through doctor's visits, surgery to remove the pin from the outside bone, the ulna, continuing to work, including showing back up on the Monday morning after a Friday afternoon wreck — I'll talk more on that below — and other things have chewed deeply into my time.

And, that said, maybe I've been afraid to face myself here.

I've already been confronted with an aging, single secularist dependent on help from others, particularly from one coworker, the staff writer at my newspaper.

Beyond her help as a chauffeur and also an occasional emotional sounding board, I've simply ...

already been confronted with an aging, single secularist who is afraid he won't get back 100 percent of his arm and hand usage, along with ramped-up versions of old fears about being stuck in his current job and locale.

THAT's part of what I've been afraid to face.

Meanwhile, I have the job-related anxieties of a new publisher now here, having taken many weeks, and finally landing a sports writer (I think), and a bit of a small resentment over feeling underappreciated, and, beyond the local level, not enough concern expressed about how my broken arm was rehabbing and other things.

I've had some new rounds of quasi-deja vu that I'm going to get out of here. But, deja vu isn't a metaphysical fulcrum. Whether it's to consolidate memories, a brain with a mini-glitch in firing or what, it's not that. But, it is, perhaps, hope.

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.

Death doesn't take a holiday, as college makes me feel older

Regular readers, who know the person behind this, may know a fair amount of my background, but I'll provide it anyway as an explainer.

I went to my dad's conservative religious alma mater for my undergraduate degree, out of a mix of drift, depression, and not bucking his passive control of me, when I was in high school. I then went on to his graduate seminary before kicking at the traces.

The above is part of why I worry about employment and related economic issues. The college is now closed, and with my originally slated four-year graduating class having about 50-60 people (yes, that small) and my actual five-year graduating class (in the last year the school was open) having even less, I don't have a lot of networking for jobs among the old fellow alums. And, of course, a seminary exists for one particular thing. (Well, with academic graduate degrees, it exists also for continuing education of pastors, and creation of professors for there and the denomination's colleges, but still, there's no alumni office for job placement help there, either.)

My college still sends out a quarterly newsletter. That includes an "in remembrance" of the recently dead. This time, that includes the college's business manager when I was there. And an affiliated ministerial-evangelist staffer. And the chaplain at the state mental hospital in the same town, who was an alum and had college affiliation. And, the father of a classmate. And a classmate. Then, after the newsletter had been printed, found out that the college's last president died.

Not only does it make me feel older, but, I think it has subconsciously kicked up another round of resentment over life issues. And, I need to let that happen. Including any feeling of "stuckness."

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.