The time to realise it’s not about you.

I had a rare visit from my brother today. The call came early that he was in town and wanted to see me luckily I was in an okay space to say yes. The visit helped me understand so much more and even feel.love for him. That said, what happened in the family I grew up in was all geared around business. So Mum and Dad were more absent. They were working hard. First Mum and this older brother in the family restaurant while Dad had the grocery store, so no one was around to parent much.

Mum was gone most nights and was too tired from the long hours. It makes sense also of why at 17 when my first boyfriend fell asleep on me (no we were not having sex yet) I threw a shoe across the room in a fury. Not proud of it but there you go!

Sadly my brother’s cancer is back. He is taking it in his stride. And the good thing I noticed today was me being more detached from how he doesn’t see me. Of course he had news about my sister which was not good, she will never be able to support herself and live alone and in some level maybe that makes sense. My heart really breaks on one level this is my family and they were formed from certain conditions all of which also affected me in different ways to them and have little to do with me.

He asked me if I was okay for money. I am happy to get by on my allowance and be grateful, even if it meant more abandonment Mum and Dad were trying to make a more secure future for all of us. Sadly all of us suffered from the work too hard and lack of self care ethic combined with alcohol used to numb. My older sister and I were the most overt casualties but my living sister is too. She looked to the drugs to regulate her but they did not allow her to unwind anything from within of her own carried multi generational neglect and trauma.

I actually felt love for my brother. At least he made an effort to visit and he listened to all I had to say about the concerns over my sister. I will have to make an effort to visit her over Christmas. I still fear her son. But I know on some level maybe he is innocent too. Doing the best he can or knows how to under the circumstances. Shouting about it all in an email only made him feel attacked, upset and possibly helpless too.. I see that now. I took out the hard bat that I so often turn against myself. It’s not the Al Anon way.

I want to find a way to handle things more gracefully and with less ego over Christmas God knows its not my mess to fix and there is so so little I actually do have control over. Only my attitudes and approach to ruthlessly examine when and if I am truly being motivated by fear or love..because God knows fear adopts many powerful disguises. When I just let myself love them all as well as myself in my mixed up human imperfection life feels a lot more sane, emotionally healthy and serene to me.