born into this mess
Saturday, September 06, 2003
  the desert is in the heart of you brother
So I drove out to my parents' house to say Hi, only to realize that they aren't here. I think they may be out of town even. I don't know.

I found a picture of my brother in my mom's bathroom. He is quite young, maybe 8 or 9, holding a smaller boy on his back. It made me want to cry.

I have't had more than one 'real' conversation with my brother in over a year. He is very different from me. It hurts me to see him, causes me actual physical and emotional distress. He is very very unhappy, I think. He has to be concealing so much misery. He always looks so worn out.

He's had a lot of broken hearts, he is constantly getting engaged to nice Christian girls and then getting dumped. He is very very evangelically Christian, active in our parents' church. I don't think he drinks or anything and I know he doesn't have sex. He just seems like a soulless robot when I see him. I am sure he thinks I am going to hell, so I guess we're even.

We were never close. I was always semi-ashamed of him as a little girl, I was a very bright kid, my father's favorite, a precocious bookworm, drawing and writing and determined to be Pippi Longstocking when I grew up. He, on the other hand, has learning disabilities, was an average athlete, much more like my mother. He has very bad social skills, he is so outgoing that it turns people off, like a 9 month old black lab who won't stop jumping on you. He used to get picked on a lot, the big kids would throw his books in the dumpster, he was always getting teased for asking out all the girls in the grade. I never stood up for him. Instead I mocked him mercilessly. He had to go to playgroup therapy as a kid.

I think he was sexually abused. I found out a few years ago that he raped my cousin when I was 11 and it made me remember things that I hadn't thought about. I don't think he ever actually touched me, at least not under my clothes, but I remember being very uncomfortable around him and scared to be alone in the house with him. I feel physically sick, nauseous, if I think about it too much so I think I am repressing memories. He used to pin me down and breathe on me. Chase me with knives. Make very sexual comments to my friends. Recently I was wrestling with a friend who lay on top of me and pinned my wrists up over my head and I had a panic attack, I think it may have something to do with him.


I have never really talked about this until quite recently, never identified the things he did as abuse. There are a lot of things I need to try to remember. The two years before I was put into longterm inpatient drug rehab at 13. The reasons I went from being a spunky, somewhat nerdy little redhead in white keds and teddy bear sweatshirts to being an angry and depressed skinhead who climbed out of her second story window to get high at the park with the older kids.

I mourn for my brother. But I haven't dealt enough with the past to reach out to him. Maybe one day I will.
 
|
of you folks up in this mess

I'll lean on you sometimes.
Just to see if you're still there
These feet can't take the weight of one,
much less two, so we hit concrete.

How were we born into this mess?

Jawbreaker, "Kiss the Bottle"

ARCHIVES
07/01/2003 - 08/01/2003 / 08/01/2003 - 09/01/2003 / 09/01/2003 - 10/01/2003 / 10/01/2003 - 11/01/2003 / 12/01/2003 - 01/01/2004 / 01/01/2004 - 02/01/2004 / 02/01/2004 - 03/01/2004 / 03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004 / 04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004 / 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 / 06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004 / 07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004 / 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 / 09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004 / 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 / 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004 / 12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005 / 01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005 / 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 / 03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005 / 04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005 / 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005 / 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005 / 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005 / 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005 / 09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005 / 04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006 / 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006 /


why I am ashamed of my government

baghdad burning
changing face of iraq
free iraq!
iraq body count
iraq in pictures
today in iraq
Cost of the War in Iraq
(JavaScript Error)
To see more details, click here.


cherry blossom special
clearance bin: bent robots
margaret cho fucking rawks
exploding dog
neil gaiman
indy media: you see it, you write it, we read it
in your face
memphis scene
michael moore
the morning news
pulp faction
que sera sera
rachel and the city: memphis gossip
saturna: moms can be DJs too
teaching baby paranoia
this imploding heart
where we're bound
white ninja comics
wil wheaton
will you marry me, dave eggers?


ryan adams
cory branan
harlan t bobo
dixie dirt
eminem
the faint
the glass
godspeed you black emperor
jawbreaker
damien jurado
lucero
will oldham
bruce springsteen
this bike is a pipe bomb
sigur ros
songs: ohia
tom waits
the yeah yeah yeahs


monkeys susan minot
of love and other demons gabriel garcia marquez
how we are hungry dave eggers
a true story based on lies jennifer clement
frida barbara mujica
confessions of an ugly stepsister gregory maguire
the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay michael chabon
taft ann patchett
drop city t c boyle
song of solomon toni morrison
strong motion jonathan franzen
a house for mr biswas v s naipaul
the last samurai helen dewitt
retrato en sepia isabel allende
the sun also rises ernest hemingway. ernest goddamn hemingway
de todo lo visible y lo invisible lucia etxebarria
bastard out of carolina dorothy allison
light can be both wave and particle ellen gilchrist
the last report on the miracles at little no horse louise erdrich
the onion girl charles delint
oblivion david foster wallace
underworld don delillo
for hearing people only:answers to the most commonly asked questions about the deaf community matthew moore
dress your family in corduroy and denim david sedaris
the feast of love charles baxter
an unquiet mind kay jamison
the adventures of huckleberry finn
the adventures of tom sawyer mark twain
middlesex jeffrey eugenides
interpreter of maladies jhumpa lahiri
american psycho bret easton ellis
how to be good nick hornby
as i lay dying william faulkner
the book of joe jonathan tropper
portrait of a romantic steven millhauser
tiny giants nate powell
how to be alone jonathan franzen
diablo guardiƔn xavier velasco
white teeth zadie smith
candy mian mian
vivir para contarla gabriel garcia marquez
raise high the roof beam, carpenters & seymour: an introduction j d salinger
girl in landscape jonathan lethem
in the penny arcade steven millhauser
amnesia moon jonathan lethem
motherless brooklyn jonathan lethem
a plague of dreamers steve stern
franny and zooey j.d. salinger
lies and the lying liars who tell them al franken
sick puppy carl hiaasen
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes, trans. Edith Grossman
Travesti: sex, gender and culture among Brazilian transgendered prostitutes
Don Kulick

Talk: a novel in dialogue Corey Mesler
Thirteen Stories and Thirteen Epitaphs William T. Vollmann
The Once and Future King T.H. White


black lodge video
burke's books
decleyre housing coooperative
hi tone cafe
live from memphis
digital media co-op
memphis flyer
metal museum
midtown food co-op
miz ellen's soul food
p & h cafe
stella


Powered by Blogger