You’ve come a long way baby.
Today, as I sit here trying to understand my life, trying to make sense of everything, trying to sort my expectations between realistic and unrealistic. Between isolation and independence, between trailblazer and wanderer.......my relative success and failure in meeting my goals and expectations...................I take time out to remember you.
You know, I never really felt like I had the chance to be the big brother to you that I wanted to be. I always felt like a big brother should be a leader, the point man. The sibling who looks out for the other siblings, and catches them if they fall. The one who guides and protects while pushing forward through life. The sibling who offers the benefit of his experience to his younger siblings to give them an added boost when it comes to learning about the world. The one they come to for help. I think about our past Shannon and I honestly don’t see that a great deal of any of that occurred. Whether because I wasn’t strong enough, or because circumstance pulled us in different directions I don’t really know.
I do know that I wanted to be much more involved in your life than what has become history. I don’t know what is tougher. Trying to live up to my own expectations of myself for our family, or the uncertainty of how to feel when I wasn’t able to fulfill those expectations for either myself or our family.
This November seems somehow different than any of the preceding ones. Something has changed. It feels like my world has changed. I know that I am struggling with depression, but a great deal of that has been in no small part to becoming aware, that the brighter more innocent world I thought I was living in has become somewhat less brilliant, less hopeful and a little more desperate that it ever was before. It is interesting to realize that I have been in a state of suspended denial for some time now. It is less difficult for example to believe in the best of humanity than when I don’t have exceptional examples which contradict those beliefs up in my face. Once I have had those experiences, it is quite a bit more difficult to continue to maintain the belief structure that has carried me to this point in life. At this point, I have enough data and understanding to recognize that I have no idea of what I am doing, or where I am going, and that my extreme efforts have seemingly been nothing but wasted energy. A sobering thought to be sure.
There is nothing that will bring clarity so quickly as having the vehicle of my understanding completely totaled as the result of some thoughtless insensitive driver on the highway of life involving me in an hit and run incident. What it does do is force me to understand that my vehicle IS damaged beyond repair , and that if I desire to get back on the road and travel through life at good speed, I am going to be forced to build another. Of course the real challenge is that resources are hard to obtain at this time, and components for rebuilding would be difficult if I had plenty of energy in reserve, which I do not.
All of which brings about the question regarding whether I need to even travel on this road at all? Maybe I should consider building an aircraft instead? Maybe that is all just too complicated and what I really need is just a magic rug.
Simple might be good. Simple might be really good.
I could just DITCH ALL of the expectations I had about who I am, who I should be, what I think I need, where I think I should live, how I think I should live, how others relate to me, IF others relate to me...
Maybe I could just instead, poke around my little pond of life and stop trying to participate in a rat race which refuses to allow me the benefit of using my best engines? Maybe they won’t let me use my best engines for fear I will gain an unfair advantage over them? ...You and I were both raised to believe that it was all about being “he who had the better mousetrap”....but that game doesn’t really work. It’s fixed.
So....I know that you are a brilliant woman. Yes, WOMAN. You will always be my "kid sister" but I acknowledge that you are an adult. I know that you will understand what I have really said to you here, AND....I know that if you don’t, that you won’t be too proud to flat out ask me about it. (I really love that about you). Because while I am talking about what is going on in my life, my world, all I can really hope for as your big brother is ever to be a window to the world for you, and let the knowledge of what I discover shine through me........to you.
I love you Elizabeth
Happy Birthday
Chiron’
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