There’s been a lot on my mind. I’ve always had a slight preoccupation with death and well, he keeps prodding at me, but this time it’s different. Now I think about all the pages I’ve written and how if I were to suddenly die, I would leave behind thoughts that may be taken out of context, that is if they were read. I also am leaving behind a lot of clutter. It seems silly that these things would be an issue for me, but it does cause a slight tinge of anxiety. It makes me want to go through my writings and toss out some that were written for my eyes only or maybe I should toss them all out. I’m still young, but I know all too well that we can cease to exist at any moment, without any warning. It doesn’t help matters that my mother had me twenty years after both my brother’s. It makes for a setting of witnessing many deaths and leaving few much older family members behind. I’ve been prone to bouts of irrationality. I think this little glitch is also why I’ve closed up a part of myself. It’s hard to explain exactly, but I can feel it a little bit.

When I dream, though, as I did last night—or I should say remembered—I woke with a wonderful feeling and smile and I went straight to my notebook and penned my dreams and I loved it. I loved how my pen moved effortlessly across the page as I recalled the details that were still fresh: The beach, warm water; the man clad in black from another time wanting to take our picture as I was about to get in the water; and an earlier separate dream that ended in a soft kiss—a feeling that’s it’s OK to move on.

And it doesn’t help to have a brother that loved me too much—that is to say—he adored me and he became a father and brother to me when my mom passed away when she was 56 and I was 12 or so. He adored me even before then. He was able to love me in a way my mother could not.  My brother would have been 32. That’s quite a responsibility for him to assume. He had help, but he felt the responsibility. But he had ways that as I got older, I just could not deal with any more. He drank too much and so I sort of cut him off as I started “growing up”. I still loved him, but I couldn’t be in his presence without feeling the overbearing, overprotective, smothering type of love. I know he meant well, means well, but…it doesn’t help that he recently sent me an email and I detected that he had been drinking. I always know. It was a few short lines, but it felt cruel for him to try and make me feel guilty by playing the death card. My mother used to do that because she didn’t know how else to reach out. He has tried to reach out, but he has an energy that unsettles me. I love my brother very much and appreciate all that he did for me, but I sense in him something that throws me off balance. One day not too long ago, at the most inappropriate time, he said some words to me that hurt something awful—and in that moment I saw my mother. If my mother were a man, she would be my brother. My grandmother must have gotten into my every nook and cranny because although I still hurt about some things, I don’t feel anger or hate. Gracias, mi abuelita.

So yesterday, I said to myself, I need to find a way to not completely keep myself from my brother, but I have to wait for the right time, the right moment. I suppose, it must be hard not seeing your “baby sister.” She still keeps in touch through email and the occasional visit with Brother and Uncle, but she realizes that in about a ten year period, she can count on two, maybe four hands, how many times she’s been in her brother’s presence and they live near each other. She’s just never sure what mode or mood brother will be in and she’s never sure how her defenses are from day to day. It takes a lot out of her to be in certain people’s company and if she allows their anger or upset to become hers, it takes a while to shake it.

It’s a difficult road, with difficult choices, but sometimes the only way a person can reclaim themselves from a mother and brother who loved, but could not let go—is by keeping the nest at a distance, so that she can fly, fly, fly—be her own person, find her own voice that was always kept silent—not by force, but by circumstance.

Peace and love to all ~ and may I continue to find my way in this spinning world.