June 23, 2000

   It's been an interesting week, with lots of good things and bad things.  Good things first:  the ezine is nearing completion of its first "issue" and i'm starting to feel more confident that the premise of it will work, and work well.  Also, a test i had done today has revealed that my major health worries aren't nearly as bad as i was imagining, and although i am going to have to make a few eating habits changes, i'm still basically healthy.  Whew!

     Bad things:  my short story was returned to me with a "sorry, can't use it in our 'zine", and the webpage i was hoping to be hired to do, fell through.  Damn.  

     So i'm back to questioning whether i should be so presumptuous as to assume i can do either of those things well enough.  And back to worrying about money, or the lack thereof.  How do all these people get the confidence to just go out and "do", instead of being like me and futzing about it, stewing and fretting about ability.  And then i worry that if i don't start producing in a cost effective way as well, then i'm a burden on Master.  It's all just so frustrating sometimes.

June 25, 2000   

     It's two days later since writing the above.  my mind hasn't been in a good place for the journal it seems.  So i'm trying again.  

     It was my sister's birthday yesterday.  She turned 36 and i think it's finally occurred to her that she's getting older.  She did the "oh my god, i'm getting closer to 40 and then it will be 50 and on and on" routine, while i commiserated with words like "yep, it sucks."  Finally she asked; "do you think i am that old?"  

     Honestly, sometimes i still think of her as the 14 year old kid who stood up for me at my first wedding.  Perhaps it is because we've never lived close to each other, and in truth always had limited communication.  There are days i feel positively ashamed of myself for allowing Madame Butterfly all those years of keeping us apart.  But i guess that is something only a psychiatrist could sort through the reasoning of.  i don't think any of us truly understood the workings of that woman's mind.  

     Anyway, during the conversation with my sister, it finally occurred to me to ask her just where she and my younger brother were during all those nights of violence that happened at home.   In fact, where was she the night i ran out of the house and never went back again?

     Apparently the two of them made regular nightly visits to the neighbours, just like i used to.  My brother would go across the street to the Murphy's (a large and loving, but poor family) and my sister would crawl out the window of her third story bedroom window to the tv antennae, climb down it and run to Granny James' house.  (Granny James was a very elderly babysitter we'd had years before)  And this was what they'd done the night i left home for good.  my sister then, was 10 years old, my brother 13.  

     The stories go on, but i still can't digest most of them.  What were my 'parents' thinking?  Wasn't there a shred of decency in them somewhere that they could have drawn on, to stop the insanity?  Were they so cold and unfeeling, or perhaps selfish is a better word, that they couldn't see, or simply didn't care, what they were doing to four children?  

     How can i miss Madame Butterfly and be so appalled by her in the very same instance?  How can i attribute any positive qualities to either of them?  Perhaps my nature is just too forgiving; but then it could be i'm just trying to bury things again. Or maybe i am trying to shed the burden of the memories, but as i finally attempt a closeness with my siblings, i will need to rehash them, to find a safer place to put them.  Yet it seems to me that it's not healthy to dwell on the past, but better to get past it and move forward.

     i know that other people have skeletons in their closets,  that the ideal childhood is mostly a rare thing.  Maybe i just haven't found the right size closest yet.