cierah

I, for some unknown, reason feel a desire to share my personal story will all you wise ones. I am not very articulate with things like this therefore, bear with me. I've also never written any of this shit down before so forgive me if I post it for a few minutes, hours or days and then remove it.

To start: My history with my brother can pretty much be summed up by the narrative of two seperate occasions. The first was August 17th. My family was one of our our annual camping trips. Somehow (I never remember how) my brother got into a fight with my parents. When I say fight I mean axe weilding fight. I could not have been more than 15 or 16 at the time. It was late at night and there was a huge mother of a lightning storm occuring. My sisters (both younger than me) were scared and so was I. I have no concept of time but when it was over my mother abonded us to take my brother to the hospital. He was having a hard time breathing which probably had nothing to do with the fact that he had just been threatening dad with an axe and generally been in a huge physical fight (note the sarcasm). I just feel as though that decision - her taking him to the hospital when we were all really afraid and upset just sums up the relationship. Basically, that no matter what had happened my brother would always be forgiven and loved while I would be abandoned. I know that's a childish feeling to have but it's mine and I own it.

The second major occurance happened when I was in my last year of highschool. One night, of by this time, semi-regular fighting between my parents and my brother, the fighting apparently got bad enough for one of my parents to call the cops. They, I guess, arrested him. Anyways, the point is that when I woke up the next morning Dad told me that they had arrested my brother. I was like 'fine. good'. Yeah. The fighting was obviously loud enough to wake and upset my sisters. Dad said that after it was pretty much over he went around to everyone's rooms and asked them if they were okay. He said that I was flat on my stomach snoring up a storm. I did not even wake up. I did not know that anything was happening until the next morning. I thanked God with all my being that I did not have to be witness and remember that. I think it was God's way of protecting me but apparently he couldn't protect me from the choices of my mother.
My brother got out of jail and came back home. I don't remember how long it was until the next fight, or the next time that the cops were called, or the next time I was afraid. I do remeber waiting on the phone with the police while my brother was fighting with my dad and mother was repeatidly saying 'Stop it! We love you, {brother's name}.' The cops came and left and my brother remained and my mother's love for him remained.

When I write this it doesn't seem so bad (b/c a lot of ppl have a lot worse that I did) but there was a lot of shit going down in that house and it had a {negative} effect on me. I guess my brother is doing okay now. He's got a job and is supposedly going back to school in the fall. I don't know. That makes me angry because I don't feel as though he has the right to be okay. He fucked with my head and I'm obviously not okay so why should he be? I haven't talked to him in almost three years. I sorta regret that because I am supposed to have a brother but I don't. I don't think I regret it enough to actually talk to him because that would mean putting myself back in that situation which I am sure that I don't want to do.

That brings me to my question, wise ones. I think I want to forgive him but I don't want to put myself in a situation in which I can get hurt (mentally or physically) and therefore do not want to be his friend but do you alls think I should give him a second chance? (well if I was counting it'd be closer to a 30th chance or something but the idea is there...) That is really a stupid question for regardless of what you say I won't - I can not give him another chance. My soul could not bear it. It really could not. So, the real question is perhaps - is my hatred justified? But even that... I know hatred eats away at the soul until you are just as bitter and empty as them, or even more so. So life long hatred is not the answer. So the question? How do I forgive him and yet continue protecting myself? I guess that is the question.

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"You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories" -Stainslaw J. Lec