-----
"The Taste Of Absent Minded Actions Outweigh Forgiveness"
-10 Years, "Paralyzing Kings"
I don't even know exactly where to begin.
I suppose it could start with the phone call I got this morning:
Me: "Hello?"
Mom: "Hey, are you going to work?"
Me: "Not quite; I just woke up and I'm getting ready. What's up?"
Mom: "Well, I wanted to talk to you."
Me: "Okay."
Mom: "I know you and ---------- have been talking lately."
Me: "...Okay."
Mom: "Well, she's really worried about your brother being up here in -------- for his new job and their being so far apart."
Me: "...Okay."
Mom: "Am I holding you up? I know you're probably on your way to work..."
Me: "No, I'm getting dressed. Go ahead."
Mom: "Well, from what I know, you've said some things that have gotten her all freaked out. She's worried because you've told her he's pretty much going to do her like he's done all those other girls now that he's up here."
Me: "I never said that."
Mom: "Okay, well I didn't think that really sounded like you anyway. I was just calling to make sure."
Me: "...Okay."
Mom: "They're engaged. You know ---------'s the only girl for your brother. That's why I'm trying to get her up here with him, too. They need to be together."
Me: "...Okay."
Mom: "Well, I'll let you go; I know you're on you're on your way to work..."
(Considering I was half a-fucking-sleep, I can't say that's verbatim, but I can say that the above is the closest to replicating the conversation as I can get.)
First of all, I'd like to thank you for being so concerned with gossip that you didn't hear me the first two times when I told you that I was not on my way to work yet and had no problem talking to you.
However I do have a problem with you calling me to start shit before it's even happened or been clarified. On top of me having only been awake for ten minutes to do it? You of all people would know that's not a good idea if information is what you're trying to get out of me.
Now, onto the more upsetting nuances of this conversation:
What do you mean when you chose the words, "going to do her like he's done all those other girls?"
Are you saying you know about the things he's done in his past relationships? Do you truly?
And if that's the case, why the fuck would you defend someone for that? Lying? Cheating? Manipulating? Is that really okay?
And no, I didn't tell --------- that he was going to fuck her over, so you were right in saying it didn't sound like me (the fact that you had to ask me anyway is upsetting in itself). I didn't have to tell her anything, because he's already fucked up. More than once.
How do you even think the subject came into being? She had mentioned the problems they had been having with their relationships a while back. It kinda came out of nowhere, which leads me to believe she'd been wanting to talk to someone about it for some time.
She went into painful detail about incidents where he had cheated on her and lied about it. Lied about it even when she had proof. Incidents where she had confronted him with it and he turned it on her to make her feel guilty about it, or just yelled at her about it because he was "tired of it being brought up."
I don't know about you, but that behavior sounds sickeningly familiar to me. Raymond? Keith, maybe?
I suppose you could say I fortified her suspicion and influenced her potential decision because I went on to elaborate on the events in which I had been mistreated as well.
The frame of time in which I was driven to nearly destroying myself several times because of his actions; his intentional torture in effort to gain the acceptance and allegiance of Scott. How, when Keith abandoned us, I felt he blamed me fully and resented me for it.
How he'd made me feel worthless through his willingness to annihilate me for something as perennial as someone's approval in more than one instance.
How, even after acknowledging what has taken place, he still has a want to communicate with Terry.
I discussed how, throughout our lives, he has developed a penchant for projecting his rejections and hurt onto anything similar or inadvertently related to them: His emotional traumas from relationships past projected onto future ones resulting in a lack of trust, suspicion, and infidelity;
the deterioration of friendships and people's worth projected onto drugs like pot because the people who had wronged him in the past had been under their influence, making him vindictive and willing to alienate people for that reason alone. (Going to the extent to tell ---------- that if he had to take her to rehab, he was going to leave her.)
And further to discuss how, through his trials and tribulations, he has not become a more humble and empathetic individual, but instead has become arrogant and self-righteous in his belief that -because he had survived such events- he is better than others.
The worst part is that -through these discussions- I began to notice that ------------ was identifying with the things I was saying. I didn't really need to elaborate much else because I was only crystallizing her own observations.
I want it to be known NOW that if she does decide to depart from the relationship, it is not by my influence alone, or much at all for that matter. When she came to me, she had made the statement that leaving had been a consideration of hers for a while. She is a human being who is more than capable of coming to her own conclusions and making her own decisions. I have not held a gun to her head -metaphorically or otherwise- and told her to leave my brother at any point.
However, I get the feeling that even with this explanation I will be on the receiving end of an immeasurable amount of anger and possibly hatred if it comes to that. I've already come to terms with that because I've been through it before, although I still don't think it would hurt any less.
But in this particular circumstance, I have to at least ask this:
Don't you think that, when the only thing you can be angry about or hate me for is telling the truth, it's about time to change your actions? Your truths?
I really, really don't want to endure you hating me again. You have no idea how shocked I was to know that I had recently gained your respect, finally had your approval because it was all I had ever wanted from the beginning.
Now that I have that, it's probably about to be crushed and I'm terrified. But I find myself returning to the same question:
If you have not, in fact, changed, is it even worth it anyway?
God, I hope you prove me wrong.
