3:09 p.m. - March 07, 2003
Home early this afternoon and it was good to beat the traffic
My sister is the force behind my brother�s desire to move in. I should have known. For some time my sister has voiced concerns that I am suicidal and since then, visits often, drops by both announced and by surprise, checks in with me by telephone once, twice, thrice per day and tries to be warm, supportive, and family-like. I don�t tell her that her concerns frustrate me, make me feel incapable and impaired. No, I am always stoic and pleasant, inquire into her day and her troubles, deter her probes into my own thoughts and problems. There is a bit of relief sometimes when I hear her outside my door and rather than ringing the bell knocks twice on the glass, my cue that if I don�t open up she will use her key, a game that we�ve played for years. Relief because often, I do not want to be alone and I take comfort in knowing someone else is also under this roof and there are many secrets in my family that we share. My sister believes my brother would be a good influence on me, lift me out of the doldrums, make me laugh; my brother told me this last night when he called for money � his last plea, he swears � and to remind me of my pledge to get back to him regarding his graduation and possible relocation chez moi. It hurts to be the odd man out, to know they talk about me in the same manner my father talks to me about taking care of my grandmother when the time comes, I despise being the weak one, the one who needs oversight.
I told my brother he is welcome to return to Northern California and can stay as long as he likes or needs though I expect him to be responsible. A minor victory of family over my thirst for distance. This will not be easy and I worry already about those nights when I am afraid to sleep and take out the paint and dropcloths and overnight the living room changes color, or the hallway, or a bedroom. I worry about being caught doing my silly things, having to defend uncovered windows and no closet doors and the other things nobody understands, of being vulnerable within my own home.
I am the older sibling the younger brother didn�t look up to, the one neither cool nor not cool, simply in-between and disinteresting. My father would tell him Don�t be like Jason and he took it to heart though my father is incensed we are both poets, published ones at that. What my brother remembers that we have talked about are the fights between my father and myself, the Thanksgiving I ruined, how I would disappear and be sullen when visible, the times I ran away, the week he spent with me in the dorm when I was a freshman in college, and his frustration at being compared to me in academics. And the most I can open up to him is about the jealousy of his being the one whose T-ball, little league, and baseball games were always more important than my soccer competitions. When we talked about that Jeff looked at me and said Maybe you should have tried harder and perhaps that is true.
Unpleasant but this is a victory, albeit small.
Last night I spoke with Spec for a little while; he asked me to come up to Seattle during my Spring break and while he can�t take time off work, we could go for walks on the beach and ferry over to Vashon and I declined and he sighed. And how badly I want that, how much I crave this, but it is not going to happen. He knows why; he said You can trust me again and I replied, No, I can�t and we were quiet for a minute before saying goodbye. I push him away when all I want to do is rush up and hold him, allow him to hold me and we can walk down the cherry lane for the sequel and I don�t know which part of me to follow, I don�t know whether the Don�t trust or the Trust instinct is truly in my best interest. I must be doing something wrong because it hurts afterwards.
I can�t imagine being open with another man the way I was with Spec and I can�t imagine being with a woman and not wanting that openness I had with a man.
I had almost won, had nearly achieved that balance of neither needing nor wanting anybody, of being safe and secure and what I have now is disappointment.
Melodrama is an enemy but it hurts to be alone.
