Stop the Ride, I Want to Get Off Now

i swear to god, i feel like, this job, i feel like i've stepped onto the merry-go-round from hell. and now its just goin' faster and faster, and i can't get off, and its just gonna spin me around until it decides i've had enough. or until i die, or at least have my psychotic break. at which point, i will certainly be fired, but conversely, not having a job will be the least of my worries. good? bad? i don't know. i can't decide. but sadly, involuntary commitment sort of sounds nice at the moment.

my feet hurt. my knees feel very old and creaky. or like i give blow-jobs in alley-ways for a living. or both. my legs are tired. and mostly, my brain hurts. i am very, very, very, very, VERY, VERY TIRED. i'm too tired to exercise, so i'm not sleeping well or clearing headspace in my brains. and since my sleep schedule is whacked anyway, i've given up on limiting my caffeine intake and am slamming doubleshots of espresso alllll day long. which makes sleep even more elusive. but if i don't do it, i can't manage my shifts, which are until midnight one day, and at five a.m. the next. and long. they're always long. and i'm not functioning well. i can't deal with people. i want to punch them all in the face. even the ones who aren't morons (although there are a lot of morons...) and who don't ask question after stupid fucking moronic question.

i have things on my mind. that's the other issue. i have, like, major ish on my mind. the issues, have been stirred up by my family's inability to plan a summer trip. bear with me a minute; i'm heading into middle-class white privilege territory. but really... we don't take vacations. we were going to go to israel for a few weeks this summer because we could do it for free (birthright israel, check it out.) i was excited for the "Jews With Guns Tour '08", but alas, we waited too long, and missed registration. so it will be postponed until next year.

so no israel. fair enough. well, sister is booked until june first, and then is booked again at the end of june. then she starts med school. brother insists that girlfriend comes with us, regardless of what we do. girlfriend is working and attending summer classes, and has all sorts of prior family engagements. brother, for his part, is smoking pot and trying to avoid the reality of needing to find a goddamn job. mom wants to miss as few days of work as possible, since she isn't salaried, so every day is a double loss of pay; once for the money she's spending, and again for the money she isn't making.

i'm in the same boat as mom, but i get paid crap, so i don't care when we go, except that my store is so short staffed that we're all walking around with ptsd half the time (post-traumatic stress disorder, for those less learned in the mental health sciences.) and no one can have any time off, ever. seriously, we each get two days off a week, maximum, they're never in a row (so all you can do with your day off, or all you WANT to do, is sleep, and not be on your aching feet), and my favorite part is that even though we're in such dire straits, the company is exceedingly unwilling to pay us overtime. now, people at other stores can incur overtime if they do it by helping out at our store. that's like, totally kosher. but we're still trying to cut labor whenever we can. which leaves us shortstaffed when the inevitable crush comes ten minutes after we send a partner or two home.

so if we go anywhere, well, i'll have to find a lot of nice people to take all my shifts for me. or something. that, or i can't really go anywhere. and at this point, i'm starting to feel like its all too much work. all i really want to do, is go to sleep.

and here's part of why.

we've had like, five separate plans for our vacation. and each plan, has gotten axed in succession. often, because an issue comes up with brother's girlfriend. we were going to take a cruise (its the off season, so it would be cheap, even though we would have to buy a second cabin for all five of us if girlfriend comes along) but a four day three night cruise is during the week, when she has school. so nope. can't do it. three day two night cruise is too short and hurried. not a relaxing vacation. we finally settled on a long weekend cruise, and had it all lined up, but; girlfriend's sister has high school graduation that weekend. so that plan is axed.

now, my issue, besides feeling trapped in a job that is slowly killing me, and which won't let me take the time off i would need in order to be able to continue being ABLE to do the job... deep breath... my issues, are centered on brother, who on the night before his high school graduation, told me that he would feel better if i didn't come to the party that his girlfriend's family was throwing for the two of them the next day. he'd feel better, if i didn't come. it would be uncomfortable for him to have me there. because they're very christian, you see. very conservative. and i'm... well, i'm me, and you just never know what i'm gonna say, do yah!!! i'm just, y'know... a loose cannon. unpredictable.

he didn't really say those last parts. i insert them myself, because i have to do something to explain why it felt like the bottom dropped out of my stomach when he said that to me. "i'd feel better if you didn't come." my mind instantly emptied of all thought. for once in my life, i was completely speechless, and my mind was blank. and my stomach, my abdomen, felt emptied of all viscera. i was hollow, and cold.

because brother has said in the past, several patronizing things like, "i know you're going to be how you want to be..." or "i understand that you're going to do what you want." implying:

a) that though he's trying to sound like he's non-judgemental and cool with it all, he has major issues with how i behave, and

b) that i choose to to do the things i do, and that it's my fault that he's embarassed. that i choose to be gay, and neurotic, and loud, and odd, and that really, i could be like all the normal people if i wanted (and god help me, but sometimes, in all honesty, i find myself wanting to be like normal people) but i insist on acting the way i do. to prove some cosmic point, or something. or maybe just to spite him.

and its stupid to complain. because really, my entire family is an embarassment to my brother. our strangeness, our jewishness, our intellectual natures (except for my sister. she is not, an intellectual. nor will she self-identify as jewish. she's just smart.) our general, and in my opinion healthy, abnormality, our messy house, the way our lives run from one crisis to another, just like any family (again, in my opinion)... he hates it all. god, how he wants us to be normal. he really wants to have a normal life, with a normal family, in a clean normal house where you know that the spaces below the furniture get swept regularly, and nothing accumulates clutter or dust. nevermind the irony of his own abnormality, and how its a part of the net abnormality...

in addition, he's never wanted to expose his girlfriend to us, or our house, or our lives. he made it quite clear, from the beginning of their relationship, when they were in high school, that she might come over, but they would spirit themselves away to his bedroom (formerly my bedroom) with its window out onto the roof where it looks south, and opens onto a valley of single-story house roofs nestled among green trees in the summer. he and i used to sit there, where the eaves cluster around the chimney. back when i smoked, we would get high together and look at our valley, and have the closest we've ever come to a happy and mutually satisfying relationship. now its his room, his roof, his friends and girlfriend. safe from all the weirdness inside the house, down the stairs.

i'm all right with this, in a way. i think its silly, and immature, but its his relationship, and he gets to call the shots. and i've never wanted to be friends with his girlfriend. she's nice, and they seem happy together, but i'm five years older, and a very different person. so fine.

but it was still, to me, the ultimate betrayal; it was beyond cruel, when he made it clear that not only am i an embarassment, and a liability, but that he is ashamed of me. he is ashamed of me to the point where the thought of introducing me to his girlfriend's family terrifies him. i'm sure he loves me, or whatever passes for love with him. but it felt like i'd effectively been disowned.

and now, for the sake of the family of a girl who he's too ashamed of me to have me meet, our vacation plans are changed and rearranged.

it felt bad to me. it felt really bad then, and i ate it. i said, hey, "if [me not being there] is what you need to feel comfortable, then i won't go. i won't go." he was a nervous wreck, graduating high school. what was i supposed to do? well, i forgot about it, or repressed it, or whatever. but after the last axe, the memory sprang up in my head. and i got angry.

really, really, really, REALLY ANGRY.

and part of it isn't justifiable. like it or not, my brother would sell his entire family, me included, down the river at the drop of a hat for the sake of any of his friends, or his girlfriend. he just would. he's shallow, and callous, and unthinkingly cruel, and he really likes playing normal with his blond christian girlfriend and her blond christian family, where no one seems fucked up, and everyone loves each other, and relationships are easy, and the house is always clean.

and for my part, i've really stopped trying. i don't try to talk to him anymore, because i automatically assume that my questions and concerns will be ignored and kicked aside, like i've been. like i did to him, unwittingly, when i was in high school and then went off to college; an abandonment that he has never forgiven me for, and maybe never will. i assume that he'll never be around to talk about serious stuff, and honestly, neither of us really want to spend time with each other. he has friends his own age, and has written me off, and i'm sober now, and can't go back to where we once were. i don't belong on the roof anymore, and it strikes me now, even as i write this, that i hope my brother is at least sad, every now and then, and missing me on the roof with him. but i can't go, and don't want to. time with him sounds unpleasant.

my brother and i don't like each other very much. we're not very similar in a lot of ways. and we've traded a lot of hurt back and forth. and when we do try and talk about things, he's the only person allowed to have emotions. if anyone else starts broadcasting hurt or pain or anger, he throws up his hands and leaves the room. its a defense mechanism he's developed, and well, it works. i don't bring up unpleasant topics.

this is my brother. and i don't really believe in making people change for my benefit. its not a fair thing to ask someone to do. but my friends, i would hope they might try to find a mutually agreeable solution if an issue came up. and my family too, i would hope that if it was obvious that a family member's behavior was hurting me, they might behave differently on their own, if only because they love me, and don't want to be hurting me.

but that, is not my brother.

and that is my truth to accept. and honestly, it makes me want to cry. it makes me feel so small, to not matter to him at all, or to matter so little. it makes me unbearably... its not even just "sad." sad is too short a word. too shallow. it doesn't do the feeling justice. maybe heartbroken. it makes me feel so broken and empty inside, like i'm a hollow person, a pretend person crafted of cardboard and paper. it makes me feel cold, and icy. it makes me feel empty, like a corpse on a slab, with all my insides taken away and discarded.

i can't stop thinking about this.

honestly, it makes brewing coffee seem like a very very difficult task.

so if someone can please stop this ride i seem to be on, i would appreciate it. i would really like to get off.