Distressed

So, my baby brother would rather hire an attorney than apologize to me. What happened to him? The boy I watched over when my mother was too nuts to do so? And, get this, my father paid the retainer.

Wow. I am a swan, not an ugly duckling. I do not fit the fam. Nonetheless, I am weepingly distressed, and feel foolish — how is this a surprise? Did I not notice the years of estrangement — from all of them?

Hope is a drug, and I am an addict trying to break free. I so want a family that I ignore cruelty, neglect, abandonment, spite, lies, conspiracies. My father moved 400 miles away and married another woman. “I’ll be back when I finish studying,” he told my five-year-old self when I got up the courage to ask.

Later, my mother read the restraining order on my then-boyfriend (he went to her house when he was served) and believed his excuses. “I know what you say happened,” she said when I confronted her.

All these years I’ve felt like the crazy one, but the Voice of Authority is the Voice of Lies. It is time to trust my Self. It is time to say NO, that is NOT how it is, that is NOT how it was, that is NOT acceptable behavior.

It is time to build my own family. It’s not too late.