Family fun

I hung out with my cousin today. We didn't really do anything, and that was totally fine. I need to do more nothing with other people. It's good for me.

Friday night I went to my parents' for dinner. My grandfather came, too, and started crying at the end of the meal, saying, "This was the first nice family dinner I've had like this in ten years." It was sweet and sad. "Well you'll have to come over more often," my parents told him. It's a shame my aunt is so nuts/controlling. Life would have been easier had my grandfather moved closer to my parents' house instead of my aunt's. It's been nice having him in the area, though, as he's terrible at phone conversations and I never used to see him without the entire family, and the entire family is very intense. I thought he was much more cold, distant, and apathetic than he really is. He's funny. You should hear him talking about the "old biddies" at his apartment/retirement home thingy. He said at dinner that he'd always intended to be a mean terrible grouch when he got old but could never quite pull it off. I started asking him questions about family history and recording it. I should have done it sooner and had it all ready and written up for his 90th birthday, but oh well.
His big 90th birthday party will be on my actual birthday. Big sucky. I think I'll just demand that cousins take me out after and get me drunk. It looks like we'll be in Deerfield, IL, but there has to be somewhere we can go. Otherwise, I will be very cranky and bitter. Birthdays are important to me, and thanks to that whole weekend being round-the-clock family "fun" time, it's not like I can even really go out a different night. Laaaaaaame.

My brother hasn't been doing too well, but you'd think my mom was the one with the actual depression. She's doing a fabulous job proving to me that I made the right choice in hiding my own psychological malbeing from her. I can't imagine her response is in any way helping my brother, as it sounds like they're slipping into their own little world of misery together. I want to kidnap my brother and send my mom to therapy, but I'm not actually the parent, so I get to sit here and bang my head against the wall. I know not everyone's depression is the same, and that my brother's depression is different from mine, but I at least know the demon and that it can be tamed and that adding on yet another pill isn't the answer. My mom, the therapist, seems to think adding pills is the answer. My brother thinks it's stupid and that there are actual life issues causing the depression. But he says therapy doesn't help and it's school that's making him miserable so he can't stop doing that. I suggested he figure out what it is about school that's the problem and try to get rid of that, but I'm just the sister and that's the point at which I'm forced to butt out. It's understandable, but it's hard because I watch my mother (who is extremely well-intended and really wants the best for him) impose on him what she thinks is the problem and solution and is just so sure she's right while she says "I'm not sure I'm right" that reality doesn't have room to enter the picture. And I totally do the same thing, where I'm so sure I'm right in my own interpretation of everything that's going on, but at least I have the self-awareness to recognize that I actually am acting on my own perceptions and not necessarily my brother's, and isn't his what needs to count in this situation? Maybe all these people who are so sure they know what's best for him is causing his depression. It certainly didn't help mine, and I didn't have two older sisters being added to the mix. As Brian pointed out the other night, at least I don't live with my family. I have my nice little hole to hide in and I don't have to see or speak to them every day so I have time to gather myself and reacquaint myself with reality. But I have thought about putting myself back in therapy to deal with my mother's dealing with my brother. Basically, if she won't see someone (and then maybe possibly not dump so much on me, even when she's trying not to dump stuff on me, because at this point it's spilling out of her eyeballs), then I have to.
Ooh, bad visual analogy: my brother is a large bucket with a few leaks, spilling into my mother who is a tiny bucket with many leaks, spilling into me. My leaks are all covered in duct tape, but if my mom won't do anything to stop up her holes, I'm going to need some help collecting all the water.

I bought three large boxes of Kix today at the grocery store because they were on sale, as was milk. I. Love. Kix.


These test results worry me greatly:

Your 80s Heartthrob Is

Bill Gates

Who's Your 80's Heartthrob?