Monsters

Apparently, it is now free and open season on my private email. What was a simple statement – dear Uncle, if you don’t want your messages to go into the pile, email me here -has now become a family free for all. I will have zero surprise to find that my message mentioning depression is now making the rounds. My private inbox is now violated with an additional message from my aunt, one from a cousin, and one from my other brother. Which sucks, because I’ve had that email for like 20 years now, and THIS is the first my fucking family uses it?!?!?

I’d just started calming down, too. From yesterday, from my entire fucking life. Topics like my family make me see red. Since they all (I’ll give ’em whatever benefit of the doubt I can) accidentally stopped including me in family emails, I’ve developed a nice little shell – my own way to deal with that particular rejection. And if they don’t think two years of silence (my bro corrected me, it’s 2 years, not 1 since the nasty message from my sister) results in hard feelings they all have lower IQs than I first imagined. Life can explain long silences to a point. You can’t convince me that you didn’t have 2 minutes to write a note to me in two years. No one is that busy. Two years of silence is avoidance. It’s thinking of me but not writing because you don’t know what to say or you don’t want to hear my shit or you have some problem with me that’s preventing you from reaching out. Avoidance.

Feels like they’re dancing on my grave. Maybe the Xmas wishes are heartfelt but they fall like ash on my head. Two years of shit, of crying and feeling abandoned, and you say Merry fucking Christmas? Really. I imagine them all having a good laugh over poor little me, the family’s crazy drug addict stuck half way around the world crying. It doesn’t soften my feelings for them at all.

My best revenge is to live, and live well.

In the meantime, I suppose I’ll have to toughen up to seeing email from the family invade my personal space. I had them all emailing me at a yahoo account, ’cause I can only access my private email when I’m on my own computer. So I have a double dummy; something that gets copies of everything sent to my private email. I can access that from anywhere. *sigh* I should have kept my mouth shut and not said anything. I’m really kicking myself for it. This is my professional email, so it’s not like I can get rid of it. Notifications regarding my music and writing come in thru there. Fuck.

Family fucks everything up. Travelled half way around the world to get AWAY from those morons and with ONE message my blissful wall between them and me is ripped down.

Shoulda just left it alone.

Two days to counseling. They’d better fucking be ready for a tornado. And I’d better DAMN well have someone speak English fluently because I am going off – just as fast as any Dutch speaker ever tried to speak to me, complete with English phrases and sayings only English speaking people will fucking understand because once this fucking bubble is burst it’s all gonna come out. I have enough Dutch to simply state matters: Ik ben boos. Yeah. But somehow saying I’m fucking angry is a hell of lot more satisfying than Ik ben boos. The Dutch are too satisfied with life. They don’t have the plosive sounds needed for a really good curse – which is why you’ll hear most Dutch go on and on and then slip in a ‘fuck you’ in English. Even THEY want to curse in English.

Hells bells. And when I say it, I hear it. Head bang, babies.

In typical perverse manner, I’m sidestepping most of the holiday fare right now – all those feel good annual films they show – and seeking out horror and creepy videos on YouTube. If I’ve got to get shivers right now, I’d rather it be from something that freaks me out rather than freaking out about my family…if that makes sense. Does to me. Have not feasted on MY seasonal fare – the Alien Quadrilogy – yet. Perhaps it’s time to take a ride with Ripley. She’s one of the greatest demi-gods to ever appear in film history, in my humble opinion. I love watching it: the fear, allowing it to consume me as it does her. Then – most importantly – the fight. The soldier she becomes, the acceptance of her fate. She struggles with it as much as any of us do. It’s this full faceted performance over 4 films that captures me and lifts me up. She accepts fully who she is and is reborn. Or that’s the metaphor I always see. Maybe everyone else just runs from the monsters.

I don’t want to run from the monsters. I’d rather go down fighting. But I don’t have the luxury of real, live aliens to blast. My monsters are in my head, and in my inbox. For now, they continue to wait.

My brother could offer me no sound advice, other than to follow my gut instinct on the entire aunt/family situation. I’ve almost formulated a reply; it’s been kicking around in my brain. I want something that acknowledges her message, but conveys no emotion. Something cold, if I’m honest. But ‘cold’ for me simply lacks my usual manner and warmth.

I’m not the monster in this. And I don’t want to become one.