Closer

We made some wedding decorations on Saturday. I got to see the dress and it is lovely.

Can I tell you something shitty, though? My parents are giving the Butcher a thousand dollars to help with the wedding. They gave a thousand dollars to my nephew to help with his wedding. The thousand dollars they gave me when my ceiling collapsed I had to pay back.

Our other brother now makes pretty much the same amount as me. I think my parents are still paying for his car insurance and I know they are paying for car repairs whenever he needs them. And I know he has the kids. But I’ve had the Butcher and crushing debt. Also, I don’t want their money, because I don’t want them in my business that much. Also, it’s their money. They can do with it what they want.

And yet, I’m still kind of pissed. It’s not that I want it or that I want my brothers not to have it. It’s just that we had really lean times where that kind of money could have helped me keep us afloat.

I guess what pisses me off is that I remember sitting in the back seat of the car on the way home from my dad’s parents listening to my dad complain about how, in his family, the person willing to cry “I’m sick” or “I’m needy” got the most attention, whether they were the sickest or neediest person.

And my parents have helped me with stuff. It’s not like the boys get everything and I get nothing.

I think what bugs me is the knowledge that seeing something and strongly disliking it is not enough to stop you from doing it.

And I also wonder why my dad tells me he does this stuff. I know my complaining about him all the time can make him sound like a constant jerk, so the answer might seem obvious–that he does it to hurt my feelings. But that’s not really how my dad works. He wants to see himself as a good person. The hurtful things he does are things he can justify as being for my own good.

So, no, more worrisome to me is that he’s trying to demonstrate the kinds of things he does for the family so that I will know, when he’s gone, that these are the kinds of things I should be doing.

In which case, he’s going to have a very unhappy afterlife.