(no subject)

I've been thinking a lot lately about relationships: expectations, fear, friends, family. It's hard for me to be at a point in my life where I realize that I may spend the rest of my life without family. Paula and I talk about how outsiders perceive our anger at the breakdown of family as coming from a horrible lack thereof. It's really just the opposite. We used to have family. That ended when I was 12 and my grandmother had a stroke. She was the center of us. Having her die was like cutting the rope that ties a hot air balloon to the ground. We scattered to the wind without her, disjointed, unhappy and unloved. I wonder if I will ever reach a place where that long lost sense of belonging comes back to me. I hope so. I hope even as I try to force myself to accept the reality that I will probably have to bury my brother in a few years. I hope.

I was at a friend's house last night fixing a computer. Carly and I have only recently started hanging out. She is just one of the nicest people. Her younger sister is spending the weekend in the pokey (dui) and Carly was telling me stories about her crazy mother. I feel for her, having a crazy mother of my own. She struggles to help her sister not make these dumb mistake. That's a hard one made more difficult by the fact that her sister is used to having Carly clean up the mess like she's her mother. And sometimes it's harder still to step back and accept that even though we want to help someone we love, that person has the right to make their own choices and their own mistakes. It's hard to help. It's hard not to help. And just when you think you've lost al hope, it shines it's sunny face out of the dark corner where it's been hiding.

I think I'll go to the climbing wall tomorrow. There's something about clinging to a rock 10' above the ground that pulls you unrelentingly into the now.