Brother

I'm at home right now.  Home means time with my birth family which means exaggerated overreaction to just about everything they do or say.  I've done a lot of work on these relationships over the years and I've repaired a lot of damage, or at least I think I have.  I've caused some more damage, too, as long as I'm trying to be honest, which I may or may not be trying to do, but probably not.

Mostly, I'm at peace with these relationships even though they still get me all worked up from time to time.  I talk to my REAL family about the way things are and how I react, and I do get a lot of sympathetic clucking.

"Family is hard," Spandex said, over dinner.  "You don't get to choose your family."  I think he may have been smirking a little.

I try to make sure that I work on myself and not on other people.  I haven't had any luck improving my relationships when I work on someone else's faults and shortcomings.  Still, the other person has to be interested in improving things, too, for the relationships to have much of a chance of changing.  My mother likes to visit her grandchildren -- which I didn't provide -- and do religious things -- which makes me so fricking angry that I splutter spit sputter.  I can't stand my brother in law, who's just like me, and my sister and I have never been close.  The things she thinks are important I can't understand.

"Boy, you need to do some work," said Dr. Death, who was my host during my stay in The Old City this trip.  This is a telling fact.  I had a GREAT time with the good doctor and his even better wife, even when he annoyed the shit out of me trying to tell me what to do.  I choose to stay with friends and not with family.  I stayed up late and talked with them, and hated to go to bed.  I looked at the watch when I was with my birth family.  I probably wasn't subtle, either.

I think some people are like oil and water.  Some things can't be fixed as good as new.  I don't think my birth family really misses me now that I'm gone.  I think they might miss the idea of me, the theory of me, what they think they want me to be.  I bet I irritate the shit out of them, too.

I don't think I'm always at fault.  I realize I can only work on myself but that doesn't mean I have to be a doormat.  When someone treats me poorly, repeatedly, consistently, over a long period of time, I can choose to spend my time elsewhere.  It seems silly to bang my head against the wall.  I can move away.

Sometimes I think I can be of service by leaving someone else alone.