This and that

Last night was...hmm, I don't know. My mind doesn't feel as focused as I'd like when it comes to describing what exactly occurred. I feel more prepared to discuss side conversations and random thoughts, such as:

* Pauline came over last night and then Mary Ellen. It turns out Josie told Mary Ellen about the threesome Saturday night (although I didn't know it at the time), and it explains why Mary Ellen was very flirtateous and kept harping on sex within a marriage outside of the relationship, just for sex and not for anything else. Talking to Josie afterwards cleared up a lot, although since Mary Ellen--at least I think--doesn't know the full story, she can't really have a true understanding of what occurred.
* Mary Ellen revealed a lot about herself last night--apparently her brother molested her repeatedly started at eight and lasting until sixteen, when she finally gained the courage to tell someone. It's a sad sad story--her brother's manic depressive, and it's taken them years to get to a point where forgiveness is possible. Truly enlightening.
* the Patriots lost again this week. Boy, are the Grizzies going to be depressed. They are going down, down, down...
* TIME magazine recently ran an article suggesting that Lewis Carroll may have been a pedophile. Jesus, is nothing sacred? I guess I can see the elements contained within his persona that would tend to suuport this supposition, but still...I want to keep Alice in Wonderland...

Okay, there. I have that out of my system. But I feel as though I'm reverting back to the journals of my early teen years, when I wrote in the third person and reported on the goings on of those in my life, but trying at all costs to ignore what was going on inside me. No. That will not do.

Courage.

To be continued. Ashley's returned home crying.

Soul Food

This is going to be a hard night. Ashley is on a complete tear because her friend Alexis dropped out of the play that the two of them were involved in with Josie. Now Ashley doesn't want to be in the play and is completely melting down. I can see why she is so upset and disappointed and feel really sorry for that, but when she starts throwing things and screaming, and making these high-pitched wails, it gets really difficult.

When I was growing up, my sister Laurie was exactly the same way. Our house was totally at the mercy of her moods. And I was completely terrorized by Laurie. She had to have her way in every aspect of that house--where she sat, what she watched, what we did. The rest of us had to be contented with whatever crumbs she either didn't want or didn't notice. She was always the popular one, because she took so many risks, and she would love to shove it in my face that I was different, that I was disliked.

I remember one time, in junior high, she went to my parents room one Saturday morning to discuss how odd I was, suggesting that they should take me out of school and put me somewhere else--that they had to do something about me.

Perhaps, in her own way, she was right. Certainly had I received therapy at an earlier age I may not be playing out this little hellish drama right now. And yes, I understand that she obviously was confused about her sexuality.

But. That bitch shoved me so far into the closet that I had no hope of ever climbing out whole. And possibly had she not been so demanding, so shrill about possessing the spotlight every waking hour of the day, possibly my parents would actually have focused some time and attention on what was so clearly troubling me. But instead, because I was the quiet one, the one that didn't make a fuss, I was looked upon with favor--or at least benign neglect. And because she made the thought of getting HELP sound like such an awful thing, and did so in such a completely humiliating way, I grew up convinced that the best way to SHOW HER was to try and go it alone.

More the fool I.

Anyway, it gets hard when Ashley goes off like this. Yes, I understand she's bipolar. But I see Tiger getting shoved to the corner because I have to focus on HER MOOD and hide in the world of television in an attempt to try and block out HER MOOD and I think, "This isn't right." I don't want him to suffer through what I had to suffer through. What I'm suffering through right now. Because sometimes Ashley reminds me just a bit too much of Laurie, and it scares me.

God please bless him with the strength of will and character to stay free from the cage she would so willingly place him in. His soul shouldn't have to be sacrificed just to feed hers.

as mine was.

Sorry, deliberately oblique

Okay, it's quiet now. I can think about what we learned this weekend.

And I wonder if the moral is that we can't go back. Like Pandora opening her box, we cannot cage these demons...
Nor, I suspect, do we wish to, now. We grown to love that which is slowly killing us.