The Broken Ones

I had a good day!

I know, right?  About damn time!

So, first I had brunch in Boulder with my mom and my brother.  Nobody said anything stupid and pissed-off making.  And then we even went and shopped in Peppercorn (which is a stupid expensive awesome quirky housewares shop).  I love Peppercorn!

Then I came home and had dinner with the boys and K and J and their family.  Then K and J came over here and we all hung out for the evening.

Then S texted me on Facebook and we chatted, which was so unexpected and lovely.

And now I’m actually feeling all smiley for the first time in, seriously, DAYS! (Thanks, fucking keto period!)

But anyway, I was thinking about my evening with the boys.

At one point this evening, J talked about his childhood experiences as a prostitute.  I actually didn’t even know that much about that, I knew he’d been in a child pornography (as the child) operation with his brother, but I guess I didn’t know about the prostitution, although when I mentioned that he basically said it’s all the same business, there isn’t really a separation between the two things.  Which, yeah… I guess that’s true.  His younger brother (not the brother who was in the ring with him) turned to prostitution, also, after being kicked out of the family (the same way J was) and died of AIDS a few years ago.

Anyway, it was the first time sub brother ever heard about this, and J was actually more open and relaxed talking about it than I’ve ever seen him before.  Which was really interesting because… I’ve always felt like there were… brittle places in J.  Things that were still open wounds, or… barely scabbed over wounds… that he couldn’t even talk about without risking breaking them open again.  But tonight it felt more… healed.  Scarred, but less… delicate… for him to talk about and that was pretty amazing.

And as we were all sitting there it struck me that… out of the five of us…  three of us are sexual assault survivors.  Two of us are survivors of incest.  Four of us have estranged family.  Five of us have/had PTSD.

Later K was dancing and had dragged my boys into the dancing and I was sitting off with J and I said, “We’ve turned old…”  (He and I are the second and third oldest in our group.)

He looked at me and said, “We survived our youth.”

And that just struck me so powerfully.  We did.  All of us.  We are all wounded by the battles of our lives.  And maybe this group more than the average person, I don’t know… It seems like this circle of us has some pretty profound history among us.  But… we survived.

And… some of us… didn’t.

And it made me think about the ones who aren’t here.  Who didn’t survive.

And then I cried.

And J understood and I didn’t even have to tell him why I was crying.  Then Sir came over and he understood without me explaining, too.

And no one freaked out, and no one got upset, and I cried for a while, and then I was okay again.  And it was nice to just… be understood, be acknowledged, be held, but to not have anyone being uncomfortable or needing to fix it.

I think Sir was thinking about T.  Dancing always makes him think about T.

And K knew.  He’s always known, and I think sometimes when he dances like he did tonight, I think it’s his way of remembering T.  That was something they did.

Tonight sub brother has to settle something that happened today with Sir so they are in the bedroom.  I’ve closed the office door, and they have the bedroom door closed, but I can still hear it.

It makes me a little sad, and a little anxious, and I wonder if it’s stressful for sub brother when I get punished (I get punished MUCH more often than he does, so hopefully not…)

It was Mother’s Day today.  Sub brother’s mom texted him this morning demanding that he Facetime her today because it’s Mother’s Day, and she’s his mother.  She tried to give him guilt about how she birthed him and fed him and let him live in her house, etc.

Of all the things in the world, I’ve never seen anything trip sub brother’s temper as fast or as hot as his parents.

I was leaving the house just when she started texting, but I knew just from his face what was going on.  And then he showed me the first couple messages, and Sir took his phone, but… I think it set him off for the day.

Family is complicated.

Life is complicated.

I’m glad for a good day.

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