Familial Framework in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

Everything all around me is going pretty terribly right now… and I couldn’t feel better. I know that sounds really bad but I feel good to have a grip on everything right now. The death of my grandfather had heightened everything to a ridiculous level.

My mother is milking it for everything it’s worth and making it all about her. I kind of scolded her for it and she wasn’t very appreciative. So of course she turned it around on me and started trying to pick me apart. Then she said something which was intended to hurt me but in the end it started making me feel better about everything.

She looked at me and said, “I wish that you could be happy.”

So I asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well,” she said, “you’ve never been happy. As long as I’ve known you, you’ve always been miserable. And I just wish you weren’t alone. It’s your own fault that you can’t have meaningful relationships.”

I smiled at that because of two things, firstly, as long as she has seen me, I have been miserable but I realized that that’s mostly owing to the fact that she makes me miserable. Even if I am unhappy somewhere else, say like I was during my stay in Chicago, that unhappiness was mitigated by the fact that I was hundreds of miles away from my mother. Being alone and unhappy is still better than the happiest I’ve ever been in the presence of my mother.

I know that that seems like a sad statement to make, but the truth of it is actually quite comforting because it once again means that my current state of affairs is temporary.

The other thing that made me smile was because she still thinks that I’m single because I alienate people. And while that is partially true, she doesn’t know that I have had relationships. I even told her briefly about Joe. She was shocked and even guess who Joe was right off the bat, but I wouldn’t discuss anymore because I’ve long since learned that giving my mother any morsel about my life is a very bad thing and always backfires.

I know that things aren’t as I would like them to be. That’s fine. She tried to set me up with one of my grandfather’s old “friends” from the 80s. She told me he’s rich and only in his late 50s and he would take good care of me. So, in her eyes, my only pleasing choices for relationships are marriage with a woman, or a relationship with an older sugar daddy who will take away all of my financial problems. I find it quite obnoxious that these are my choices.

I’m in my thirties and I still have to deal with this shit.

Tonight is this all-you-can-eat crab feed that my family goes to every year. They’ve been going since before my little brothers were born but this is the first year I’m invited. The only reason I’m invited is because my little brother, Cameron, invited a bunch of our co-workers, and they, in-turn, invited me. More specifically, the girl he has a crush on, Marilyn, invited me.

She’s a sweet girl and I know she just wanted to be kind. She asked me to go, and when I told her that it was something from which I had always been excluded, she didn’t seem to think too much about it. A bunch of our co-workers/Cameron’s friends are going. I’m really not very sure how I feel about all this. My family has always excluded me from many things and I’ve always felt fine about it. I think that it mostly has to do with the fact that they’ve excluded me from things which they assumed I would not enjoy. Again, which is fine.

I’m mostly going tonight for Cameron’s benefit. Marilyn insisted on invited a bunch of people so that it wouldn’t seem too date-like. So I don’t think that he has much of a chance with Marilyn, but it’s good for him to go out and get jilted like this. He’s not yet 20 and hasn’t had a relationship yet, to my knowledge.

I’m trying not to get myself too involved, but I can’t help it because now we’re in the same social circles. I embarrassed him last week at a birthday party. His friend Carlos, who is fucking sexy and looks exactly like Colin Farrell, asked me why the pants I was wearing had kneepads. I just smiled and said, “Why do you think?” Cameron made a disgusted noise, and Carlos just slapped his thighs and said, “Well, come on!” It took all of my self-control not to obey him.

Even amongst the relations whom I enjoy, there’s no conventionality. I love Cameron far more than I thought possible. Sometimes I want to interfere to make his life better, but that would make me like my mother. I don’t fault her her intentions because I know that she’s trying to make things better, but those days are gone for her. I need to treat Cameron the way I wish to be treated by my mother.

See, I’m trying to break the cycle and make life better for him. I hope I don’t become as frustrating as my mother has become.