I love my brother.
I have to, because he's my brother.
But most of the time I just want to take something large and pointy and shove it into his head.
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I don't know if it's a "guy" thing, or a "Bobby" thing, or if it's just a "me" thing, but my brother seems to really go out of his way (I hope unconsciously) to make the point that his friends will always be more important to him than his family.
I could list off a dozen occurrances to support this, chief of which is his wedding and "east coast" reception which I kind of have to give him some leeway on since his choice of religion forbade his family from attending (do NOT even get me started!!), but the most recent is happening right now. This week. Thanksgiving.
Those of us who are "local" (my mom, her husband, my sister and her family, me) all have work, school, or other obligations to attend to until Wednesday when we have our family meal, and because we're having family dinner a day early, my sister and her husband will be down at the shelter helping to feed the homeless on Thanksgiving Day. My brother and his wife, however, are flying in for the week starting tomorrow (Saturday) and are free and clear until they leave next Friday. So for the locals, it's largely hit-or-miss with any sort of group gathering, and the only real free time Pam and I will have to get together with Bobby and his wife before Wednesday is this Sunday night.
Our mom has to work, but my sister and I suggested dinner out with him and our respective spouses/children/etc--perhaps catch a 6- 7ish kids movie/dinner at the new movie theatre. The response was (to paraphrase) "maybe, but we'll be out all day with church and visiting friends and we try not to go out on Sundays."
And you know, I get it. Really, I do--this is the first time he's been back east since his wedding reception, so he wants to catch up with his friends, who perhaps are his family at heart. And although what I write here may make our family sound like a horrific group of emotional monsters, we're not all that bad together . . . we just have always all needed our own space and we each had our own ways of escaping the crap we have gone through together. But why, when we're all older and able to talk and be together like adults, with our own places to go to if things get nasty, why does he continue to treat us like we're not worth the time or money when we're just trying to spend some time with him?
Fine, I am now pissed off. The big red button of "you are not good enough" has been pushed and nuclear destruction is about to commence and the winds will carry the ashes of "piss off and die" around the globe. It's not like it's a special occasion or anything: go visit your friends who live in town instead of spending any time with your relatives, because you won't be able to see your friends at any time later in the week Mon - Thurs. You're right, brother: Sunday is your best possible chance to avoid seeing us all-together since that is the ONE EVENING the three of us could meet up prior to brawling over mashed potatoes on Wednesday, and my friend, I have a freshly sharpened fork with your name on it now.
I am officially declaring family holidays a complete waste of time; I will diminish and go into the West, where I will watch LOTR movies by myself or perhaps toilet paper the yards of truly happy people who just make that much more of a contrast to the annual misery doled out to the rest of us. Is there anybody out there who even wonders anymore why I freak out around holidays?? They're the times of year specially set aside for family members to reaffirm that, did they not share a DNA profile, they'd really have nothing to do with the rest of us.
My brother sucks. I am thankful this year for friends . . . and a sister . . .and fudge-covered mint oreos.
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