Protection

I was six years old and sitting at the dinner table with my mother, my father and my two younger brothers. We were having spaghetti. The doorbell rang and my mother got up to answer it. I have no idea who was at the door; it was probably some neighbor or a girl scout selling cookies, but all I do know is that by the time my mother got back to her seat, my father had successfully made at least two out of his three children sick to their stomachs.

He was picking on his favorite child to overtly make fun of – one of my brothers. He laughed at him, taunted him, because how can you not like spaghetti? You’re going to sit there and eat it until it’s done. I don’t care if you’re here until tomorrow morning. I looked at my brother to my right, and I saw this four year old little boy building up this shell, this tough guy i don't give a shit persona, that he still has up to this day. And I was his older sister, and I could not do a goddamn thing to protect him. I could not say a word. I simply began to wash the dishes, as I was supposed to do every night, after choking through the words “can I please get up?”

Maybe that’s why now, over twenty years later, whenever I have the slightest inkling that this brother of mine is in trouble, I drop everything – everything – to try to protect him. I don’t know what I can do; he still is incredibly reticent when it comes to speaking about anything that might be bothering him. But I know. I was told this weekend by my other brother that “some seriously fucked up shit is going on with ____ and we can’t figure it out.” So I put my entire life on hold – the schoolwork I was supposed to complete, my best friend I was supposed to meet – and without even thinking, ran down the few miles to my brother’s apartment and tried, without being assuming, to show some support for whatever the “fucked up shit” is that is going on with him.

Strange things have been happening and I can’t figure them out. His roommate admitted that my brother hasn’t been home in the past week; my brother missed one of his childhood friends’ bachelor parties (hosted by him and his roommate) on Friday night; and my father showed up at their apartment this weekend. My father does not live in New York. And oh, yeah, my brother got in a fistfight that I could not watch but that left him with a bandaged hand and a bloodied arm the next morning. And I can’t put together any of it. There is a running theory out there, but I still haven’t been able to express it in words except to one person.

I watched my little brother get hurt for twenty years and I couldn’t help him. I’m his big sister. I’m supposed to be able to. And that shell that he’s been building ever since he was a little boy has grown ever stronger, so I don’t assume he’ll tell me any time soon. All I can do, I guess, is be there, is be accessible, because I still can’t protect him. I wish I could.

Late

Random thoughts after a late evening of WORKING ON A PAPER:

- it's really hard for me to write about myself when I don't feel as though I can be totally honest. The paper I have been trying to put together tonight is "all about me," yet when the audience is people judging me, how can I truly write all about me?

- one of my brothers is coming into town tomorrow (today) and we're going to do something difficult; we're going to see our great-aunts, one of whom has recently been diagnosed with an inoperable tumor. even though i live closer to her than he does, it'll be taxing to know that he thinks that this is the last time he'll ever see her. This could be true.

- i can't sleep on a normal schedule. i wish i could.

- too much emailing me has made my writing more grammatically deficient than it used to be. i actually used to be perfect in regards to grammer. as in, an 800 on that achievement test one takes in high school. however, the non-use of capitalization and punctuation and the constant use of ellipses... like that... it translates into my "academic writing." and all of my writing.

- my air conditioning unit is so much more tolerable (and hopefully cost-efficient) when I keep it on the "fan" setting. otherwise it is too cold.

- i am going to move out of this apartment. i was given a gift this evening in my mailbox because my incredibly incompetent property managers think my lease is up a month before it is. um... no, it's not. but if you want to let me out of here, then that is a SIGN. i'll get the hell out of here. no problem.

- i have a lot of space in this current apartment yet no light. light is more important to me than space. i would not have known that but for the experience. this thought directly corresponds to the former.

- why in the hell could i just write all of this in about thirty seconds (well, maybe two minutes, but that's the max) when i couldn't write ten pages "all about me" in, oh, man, about a week? at least a week?

- trying to put myself to bed is like trying to get a little child whom you are babysitting to bed. i think i want to stay up; i think there is more i should be doing (i.e. finishing the paper), but when i get there, i will be glad. where is susie murphy when i need her?

- susie murphy was a great babysitter. unfortunately my younger brother threw her keys to her house into the woods about twenty years ago, and she never babysat for us again.

- i smoked pot in those same woods with that same younger brother once. i hate smoking pot. i thought they were just drinking beers and so i went and then i couldn't be the uncool big sister. i got so messed up that i didn't know that we were fifty feet away from my house and essentially in the backyard i had grown up with. this bothered me, but evidently it didn't bother them when they couldn't find their way back. by that time i was already sleeping in my own bed.

- speaking of bed, that's where i'm going right now.

"As Happy As You Want To Be"

This is the response I got from one of my best friends last night when I called him to discuss my current state of mind. I told him to fuck off, six times, in quick succession. "Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off," I said. He asked me, sarcastically, if I wanted to tell him to fuck off again. I told him I just wanted him to understand. Because he, by the way, in the past had told me that "five out of six of [his] best friends from high school have been clinically diagnosed as insane." You would think that this motherfucker who has seen real mental illness would get that mild depression is not a place you "want to be".

I'm trying everything I can. I don't know why I feel like I have to justify myself to this blog - to a computer, in essence - but I do. Yesterday I pulled my ass out of bed, went to Riverside Park to read a children's book (a great one - "the giver" by Lois Lowry) and to soak up some of my beloved sunshine. Then, upon returning home, I decided I'd like to see "The Devil Wears Prada," so I Fandago'd myself a movie ticket, walked the mile to the movie theater, enjoyed the movie, and ambled the mile back home, looking into shop windows, shoe stores, and of course, at the other people walking around, endeavoring to appreciate my surroundings. I stopped in starbucks for an iced coffee. I came home and drew, and I called my grandmother, and I ordered out a sandwich, and I wrote and blogged, and I watched my dear Red Sox. If this wasn't taking full advantage of NYC as much as I could, then I don't know what would be. I mean, short of taking a trip up the Empire State Building - ha. Thought it was a pretty decent attempt at doing everything I enjoy.

Apparently, though, as midnight set in and I was home, alone, not wanting to "go out" and not wanting to drink, I felt that twinge of uselessness yet again. Today I haven't even been able to leave my apartment. I haven't been able to eat, save for some gourmet crackers that were given to me as a gift, nor to drink, save for two bottles of Propel water (my new favorite thing) that line the bottom shelf of my refrigerator.

So tomorrow I am pulling out the final stop. My trump card, so to speak, is the beach. I will get on an early train, I will purchase the most craptastic magazines I can find (these include US Weekly, In Touch, and People) as well as the Sunday New York Times (solely for the crossword puzzle, although the physical weight of the rest of the paper in my beach bag is always an annoying factor), and I will lie out in the predicted sunshine on the sands of Long Beach and listen to the sound of the ocean and absorb the beautiful Vitamin E.

This Shit Cannot Last. I will not allow it. I have too much to give to internalize all of the energy I have that is somehow not positive when it takes a u-turn and comes back to me, because I KNOW it is positive when I let it out in the world.

And by the way, to return to the title of this entry, are we always as ____ (fill in the blank) as we want to be? Fuck, no. Maybe, though, I can substitute "want" for "try" and at least forgive my friend a little bit for his perceived MISunderstanding. There is no doubt that I am trying. And that is, in my current mindset, the best thing that I can do.

Still Trying for OK

This fall I blamed it on the break-up. I looked so forward to January 1st, when I felt I could put it all behind me and start the year anew.

This January I blamed it on the high expectations I'd held for myself for a 180 degree turnaround in January.

This February I blamed it on too much work, too little time.

This March I blamed it on the weather.

This April I blamed it on - well, a bunch of stuff, but essentially that I hadn't been socially in a groove and had inadvertently alienated myself from other people.

This May I felt that I was on the verge of feeling okay.

This June I still felt okay but was immersed in summer coursework so didn't have time to not feel okay.

This July I am not feeling okay and now, I am blaming it on feeling fat. On looking at pictures of myself a year ago and seeing a tanned, happy, thin, in shape girl and on looking at the current reflection of myself in the mirror and seeing a pale, exhausted, 15-lbs heavier, not in shape girl.

I just want this feeling to go away. I want a time machine to either take me back to last year or to fast forward me to next year when I'll look back on this time and, hopefully, say damn, girl, you got yourself out of it. Good for you, kid.

Until then, I can only wait. I want to be in love with the world again. I can't wait until I am.

Solitary

I may have quoted this deceased man before, but my 11th grade English teacher (his class was advanced American Lit) once said something that has stuck with me in the years since then. It was to the effect that one always glorifies in the mind what has taken place in the past, no matter how hard it was at the time.

So what am currently questioning is this: how will I look back at this period in my life? At the time during which I have been more solitary than ever before in my life - and I am intentionally using the term "solitary" because I don't want to say "alone" or "lonely" or "independent" - because each of these particular terms carries with it its own connotations; the first two negative, the latter positive.

It's just a question. I have no answer to it now. I just wonder. I so wonder.