Petering Off

What I now feel like posting . . .

Sitting on my bed in the dark with a huckleberry candle lit and the tv on for mood lighting. (Yeah, I know that is so white trash, but what can I say?) Got the iPod on the Thinkin Music playlist again. Sometimes tears blur my vision.

Today was normal. My mom called during the last 10 minutes of class so once class got out, I returned her call as I walked to my car with my friends. She was crying. You know how you can hear it in someone's voice: The uneven gasps for breath, the breaks in tone like an adolescent boy when his voice changes, the warbling over longer syllables. She didn't say anything was wrong but I knew.

I called her on my way home and got part of the story: My brother had been a complete asshole to her again because my niece was playing him against her the way kids learn to do when they reach a certain age. The thing is, my brother has mental issues. I mean, real issues. I don't know exactly what's wrong with him but I would describe it as he is emotionally a 13 year old living in a 39 year old's body. So when he decides to be an asshole, he is an extra special kind of asshole that really deserves a new label altogether. I'm just not feeling creative enough to think of one right now. She also decided she had to clean the house for Easter and she was feeling overwhelmed.

I still had 15 minutes to get home when I hung up with her and I was mad as hell at my brother and at my niece too. I tried calling someone. I needed to talk to someone before I got home and had to deal with both my mother and my niece. I called my sisters. Neither answered. I called Whitney. She didn't answer. And then I felt it.

I wished I had a boyfriend. I was thinking about how I had to go home and make my mother feel better, make my niece feel remorseful, make my niece learn a lesson, clean the house for my mother so she wouldn't have to feel like she had to do it, decide on the best way to handle my brother so I could tell my mother what to do. (It's a bit bizarre the way we've flipped the coin in the last year and a half. I give my mother advice now; she looks to me to fix her problems and to lean on during the hardest times of her life. My whole life I always thought she was so strong. She never backed down from anyone or anything where her children were concerned; now I am the one that has to stick up for her.)

Anyway, I miss tonight having someone to take care of me once in awhile. I get tired of being the one to take care of things for my whole family. I get tired of putting my emotions on the back burner so that I can help those that are weaker than me (my mother, my sisters, my father). I have friends. I have lots of friends but it's so hard for me to show my weaknesses to them the way I have to boyfriends.

I really don't even have the emotional energy right now to finish this post in a conclusive way so I'm afraid I'm just going to have to peter off . . .