"Do You Have A Blog?"

As a matter of fact, I do.

I'm (sort of) sorry I lied, but if I told you about it, then you would want to read it. And if you read it, I wouldn't be able to say things like this, or this, or most especially this if you were reading.

It's not that I don't love you and all, it's just that I think I might go crazy if I had no place to say all these things to. And I wouldn't want you to get hurt.

So I lied. And I'd do it again.

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Thank you all so much for the encouraging comments on my last BSM photo: I'm glad you liked it. Since I've started hanging out at Picture This, and since I bought Photoshop and actually read the manual that came with my camera, I'm finding a new love for photography. I've been reading up on it, learning a lot about focus and F stops, and venturing away from the automatic settings of my fabulous digital camera. (Not to mention coveting better cameras with image stabilization - curse my damn shaky hands!) And checking out all of the other postings to Best Shot Monday certainly helps start my week off on the right foot.

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As for the whole "ignoring things doesn't make them better," several family issues have been nearing crisis point for some time.

Big/Only Brother had an 'episode' on Friday, which he claims is totally unrelated to the newly renewed addiction to prescription pain killers. It was either a seizure of some sort, or he was choking, or who knows what... he stopped breathing, lost consciousness, and needed CPR, but immediately came back around, a little dazed.

The doctors think it was most likely caused by a drug interaction (one of his allergy meds with his ADD med), or too high a dose of his ADD meds, or something similar - perhaps he even was choking, they don't know. Of course, at the hospital, he denied using any other drugs, so the doctors didn't have all the facts. The fact that they didn't know about the fact that he was taking Vicodin he bought from India doesn't seem to matter to him. During his transfer to the ER, the EMTs popped his shoulder out of the socket, and although it slid back in on its own, he also tore/strained his rotator cuff. It's quite painful, and now he's being prescribed pain meds, so his 'logic' is that he couldn't possibly stop taking them (the illegal ones).

I know you can see the gaping holes in his logic as well as I do, and I cannot describe the level of frustration I am feeling towards him.

He could have DIED. He wasn't breathing. He could, right now, not even be alive.

I had to see my mother's face when she got that phone call, listen to the panic she tried to keep out of her voice. I had to call my sisters and listen to them fall apart, comfort them and tell them to come to home. I had to not fall apart myself, even though it felt like I might be dying. Instead, I had to support my sisters, my grandmother; I had to watch his baby daughter try to climb up the couch, play with her and smile at her, and think: "Her world could be changing right this minute and there is nothing I can do about it."

I am relieved that he is still alive, but I am so angry at him, I could barely look in his direction. I still couldn't say anything more to him besides: "I love you. I am glad you are still alive." I wanted to shout and scream and shake him, but it wouldn't have gotten me anywhere.

He is out of work for at least this week. He can't drive or care for the kids. He has a bunch of tests all lined up. And if this turns out to be not related to his drug use, I may owe him an apology. But the fact that he has started using them again is all that fits in my brain right now. And I find it hard to believe in a coincidence like that - a drug interaction is likely, but only more so because he was taking unprescribed meds.

My parents went down on Sunday and confronted him. He was angry and edgy and defensive: he was also high as a kite, and foggy with it. The meds they'd given him at the hospital weren't the only ones he was taking, I'm sure. He gave my parents a full bottle of vicodin, and made the appointments that they went down there to get him to make. We'll see just how honest he is with his doctor by this time tomorrow.

He does not think that he needs rehab, or an intervention, or anything: "I quit on my own last time" was his defense. And he was serious.

Considering that "last time" was less than 6 months ago, his track record is not impressing me at all.

I'm disappointed and scared and hurt all over again, and don't know that I can help him if I'm like this. He stole from me. He lied to me (and is lying still: to himself and to us). He doesn't think about how his actions influence other people - not just me, but his children, his partner, his parents, his grandparents: Everyone who cares for him. Those things don't matter to him, or if they do, they don't matter enough.

I had to tell SisterK about it - as the youngest, and since she doesn't live at my house, she's been kind of out of the loop about this, but after Friday, she knew something was up. (She's smart enough for Harvard, people, putting things past her is pretty tough.) We talked a lot about how you could grow up with a father like ours, (our father was an alcoholic, who died 8 years ago,) and not think that your kids would be influenced by it. And not see the impact it would have on the rest of your family. Neither of us gets it, but Big Brother is not pleased with comparisons to Daddy. But to me, he sounds exactly the same: excuses about why his behavior is acceptable/forgivable; making things that aren't about him all about him regardless of the feelings of others; not seeing/not caring how his behavior effects those that love him; weak apologies and semi-promises... that's my father shining through his son. I can see him; I can almost smell his beer soaked breath.

And when I see my brother's son, I can only hope that this twisted legacy stops right where it is. Big Brother could do it, could face his problems and try to fix them, and if he does, there will be no better gift for his son, his daughter, his family. He would be nothing less than a hero.

But first he has to realize that he does have a problem. And I'm afraid, so deathly afraid, of what it will take in order for him to see that.

In addition to that lovely little episode, I'm also in exile once again, as the city has finally decided to dig up & then repave my street. The smell is heinous, so I'm at my grandmother's house, where SisterK and I have been staying up till all hours talking. And SisterK was kind enough to pass along yet another sinus infection, on top of the strep that just won't quit. So I'm sore and exhausted; I miss my own bed, my own pillows (5 pillows just aren't enough); the PUS refuses to dig up the flowering - read: smelly - plants they put underneath my window at home, and Nana refuses to dig up the roots of the PUS and put them out on their asses where they belong; Zack thinks that my liver levels are elevated 'unnecessarily,' as is my temp; SisterJ moved into her condo with her Fiance of the Beautiful Eyes, but SisterCh is moving back in, so it's not as though we have any extra space. It has been such an uneventful week.

Each of those things deserves a post of its own, but you won't get them tonight.

Tonight I am tired. I am sick of pretending and stressing and, as Dr Phil would say, "white knuckling it" through the day. Hopefully, they'll finish with the street tomorrow, and I could go home soon. Hopefully.

Till then, I'll just say that I'm glad I have this place, to spill out the crackled and crumbled contents of my overflowing brain. (Hey! You're my virtual pensieve: "It also relieves the mind when it becomes flooded with information." )


And, because of that, I'm not really sorry that I lied.