I haven't written in awhile. I just got home yesterday from my annual trip to visit my parents. Gone for 2 weeks, but it might as well have been a month. I'm feeling super foggy and disorientated. It's crazy how far from your routine you can get in 2 weeks. It's going to take some time to feel back to normal, to get my body off vacation time. During vacation, everything feels like excess. Too much food, too much drink, too much smoking, too much socializing, too much shopping... It's a time of the year I enjoy the American lifestyle, just as everyone else in this country does. My problem with this is there's not a lot of time for self-reflection. How can you when you are running around all day, constantly sending your brain little jolts of pleasure from alcohol, from food, from shopping all day long... Constantly talking. And talking. And talking. All those words mean very little when you haven't found peace with yourself.
So today, I start trudging back to a clearer mind. Working hard outside, yoga and meditation, regular exercise, and regular fasting. Eating lots of vegetables, not so much meat (we must have ate 3 truckloads of red meat on our vacation), and water more than anything. I think I gained 5-8 lbs on the trip, which is probably also fogging up my brain.
Ugh. I'll feel better in a week or so.
In the meantime, I'd thought I'd talk about my trip. To start with, I have never not wanted to go on a trip as much as this one. I dreaded it for days. I got anxious about it at least a week beforehand. I was nervous about leaving the puppy, and it was such a bad time of year to leave the garden. I knew my husband's aunt and uncle wouldn't feed my birds or change my hummingbird feeder. But the tickets were bought in January, circumstances be damned.
What did I find when I got home yesterday?
The puppy seems to have forgotten all of his potty training. He's going everywhere in the house. He peed in the bed last night, and he's never done that. I spent an hour last night with a roll of paper towels and the carpet cleaner, just roving from room to room cleaning up urine stains. The cilantro bolted in the garden. Something is seriously eating the potato plants. My cucumber plants turned yellow. My bird bath hasn't been scrubbed in two weeks. Something dug up and ate my lavender starts. The bird feeders were all empty, and even though I've filled them, no one has returned. The house is filthy. Laundry is flowing out of the hamper onto the floor.
I. am. frustrated.
Almost everything I thought would happen during vacation, did. Minus one of the dogs getting lost, and I might have actually killed my husband's family if that had happened.
So, I was dreading the trip. But I went. The anxiety seemed to lessen as soon as the hubby and I left for the airport. It's almost like my body knew that there was nothing I could do now. Travel went smoothly and we arrived in Oregon at 10 in the morning. The initial meeting with my brother and dad was a blur, as was lunch soon after. In fact the rest of the day is kind of blurry from jet lag, my husband and I ended up in bed very early.
The trip had begun.
I didn't notice right away, but I did notice soon after arriving how different my brother was acting. He'd last come out to visit us in the South last August, and that trip was pretty jovial and relaxing. Now, my brother seemed angry. And bitter. And lashed out at everyone. He said some hurtful things to me, and about issues that are extremely important to me. One of his comments has been burned in my head, probably forever. My brother is a high school teacher, and basketball coach, and near the end of the school year, one of his players committed suicide. My brother was telling my husband that because he is a teacher, he had to be sympathetic and compassionate to the students and parents. He said he had to "say the right thing". But deep down, he didn't feel sympathy. He said he thought that student was selfish and was trying to become a martyr. He said the kid was trying to make sure that everyone focused on him and talked about him at graduation. He then said he thought that kid was a "piece of shit".
I was floored. Shocked. Rocked.
How could anyone say that? I walked away at this time, but I thought a lot about what he said. Such a lack of empathy, especially for someone I thought was exactly like me. I thought my brother put on a big show of being an asshole and pretending not to have feelings, but maybe it's not a show. Maybe he really doesn't care. Maybe he really doesn't have compassion, and empathy for others. His student drove his car off a cliff. When that didn't kill him, he kicked the windshield out of the car, climbed the cliff, and proceeded to find a tree and hang himself. That is pure desperation there. Pure and simple. Human brains have evolved over millions of years to have systems that protect us from suicide. One of the brain's main functions is to keep us alive. People have to be sick, very sick, in order to override those systems. I know what it's like to look out at the world from eyes that see nothing but pain, destruction, unhappiness, inequality, and despair. I know what it's like to feel like you can't stand a single second more. It's terrifying to have those thoughts. These thoughts almost feel physical at times, like an anchor tied to your ankle in the ocean. When you are at the bottom, it literally feels like you're drowning. How can my brother not see how desperate that poor kid was? That he was sick, and he saw no other alternative than to do what he did?
I feel like I don't know who my brother is anymore. It almost felt like I was punched in the stomach when I realized that my brother is fake.
He says the right things. He pretends to care. He smiles and pats the kids on the back, but who knows what he's thinking inside. He says the right things to me. Is this for real? I found myself, for most of the trip, second-guessing everything he said. Did he mean what he just said, or was that sarcasm? This, of course, let to lots of retrospection on my brother's failed marriage, which ended 1 year ago. My brother got engaged after dating this girl for about 9 months. They were married within 6 months of that. She left about 16 months into the marriage, and they are now divorced. My mom and my brother talk mad shit about this girl. They say horrible, awful things like she was manipulative, a liar, and a bitch. They appall me.
I don't agree with the way my former sister-in-law went about things, but I'll just say this, she is in no way the things that my family says about her. She was a good person, with a good heart. They just did not make a good match. For one, she was very religious and my whole family is squarely in the Agnostic/Athiest camp. This, for me, was the biggest red flag. The second biggest problem was that she doesn't smoke or approve of smoking, and my brother is a stoner. A huge stoner. I think these 2 factors alone are enough for anyone to say that this might not be a forever-match here.
My former sister-in-law said it was ok that my brother was Agnostic. I think that was a lie.
My former sister-in-law said it was ok that my brother smoked weed. Occasionally. I think that was a lie.
But let's be honest, this girl was 22 when they got married. At 22, I still told guys what they wanted to hear in order to have a relationship. You always think you can change someone if they love you enough. I thought this way. I think most young girls do. Does this make them a bad person? Fuck no. It makes them youthful, optimistic, and immature, but that's what the majority of people are at 22. It's a sign of youth, not of being manipulative. And in defense of my former sister-in-law, I'm pretty sure my brother put on his good-guy act until they got married. I guarantee that this girl started to see the real person behind my brother's persona, and she probably realized she didn't even know this person. Put that together with their major lifestyle differences and of course someone is going to pull the plug on this marriage.
I forgive my former sister-in-law. I understand that these 2 people were fundamentally different. Our time on Earth is so incredibly short, we can't waste a second being unhappy. In the long run, I think my brother will be better off. He'll find someone (hopefully) that's also agnostic, and perhaps a little bit of a liberal, pot-smoking hippy. And it will work so much better. So why harbor so much animosity?
If you want to get down to brass-tax, I think my brother is in the "Anger" phase of his grieving. It must have been that he was so busy during the school year that he didn't process any of his emotions, and he's just now having time to think about it. All I can say is, I hope this phase passes. I also hope comments he made were made out of anger, and not out of him revealing his true self.
I've got lots more talking about the trip to do, but unfortunately, I also have quite a long to-do list. Till next time!
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