You'd think that being home with a newborn would be an instant signal to people to leave you alone with their shit, right? Wrong! More family trouble. it's getting worse, my friends, a lot worse. After the last arrest, my brother started going to this rehab thing. Since he had to go to meetings every weekday, he changed his drinking habits and went from daily maintenance drinking to some serious binge drinking on the weekend. The rehab is a total joke and he's just short of drinking through the mandatory meetings in protest, despite the clear instructions the judge gave him to stay out of trouble. In fact, he hasn't been staying out of trouble, and was arrested again last weekend. Now he's in serious trouble with the law and needs a good attorney to help him avoid jail time. I don't understand the law in any way, but from what I gather he's violated several terms of his parole and is in deep doodoo. This is a problem for me because I can't seem to go a day without getting a phone call from a family member or a friend of his telling me something has to be done. For awhile I was telling everyone that he had to do something for himself, but now that things are getting serious I'm not even sure he can do anything for himself. Yesterday I fielded three phone calls from various people telling me that something had to be done, but none of these people were willing to do that mysterious something themselves. One of these people was our mother, who you'd think would actually have a vested interest in doing something. Mind you, we're at home with an almost three-week-old baby and I can barely see straight for the sleep deprivation as it is. But people don't seem to mind calling us to tell me such juicy details as: my brother is suicidal. (no duh!) he has a crack habit (yikes!) and he's become a royal pain in everyone's ass.
The problem is that I actually love my brother, for all his faults. It's really hard to watch his decline without being able to skip to the end of the book and read about his recovery. I hate to see him suffer like this knowing there's a very very simple solution. The other day sweets was even reminding me to hate the disease, not the person, but I'm so torn. What I hate? The phone calls, the helplessness, the anger and the uncertainty. Just stop drinking! That's all he needs to do. Stop drinking and face all these demons that have been stalking him for the past 17 years. Maybe not so easy, but isn't that easier than having the whole world hate you?
And now I just got a phone call that my grandmother seems to have had a stroke over the weekend but wasn't telling anyone about her symptoms. This happened after she had a big fight with my brother because she's refusing to pay his legal fees, so of course my brother is going to be accused of causing her stroke. I don't even have emotional room to process the fact that my grandmother may have had a stroke, so I'm just waiting to find out what the doctors are saying.
But in babyland? the little peanut is wonderful and healthy and the lentil is starting to get an idea of what this transition is all about. It's not easy, but it's so much nicer than having to listen to my uncle shriek on the telephone about my brother.
