Wow

So, yeah, it's only been three months or so since I last posted a blog, huh? It seems like oh so much more. First off, I should tell you that I have learned a very important lesson in the last few weeks. Never, ever, ever, EVER ask the question "wow, what else can go wrong," because you know what, it'll damn sure be answered for you.

It all started a few weeks ago, when I was sleeping blissfully (or my version of it at least) when I woke up to someone knocking on the door. Living in a secure apartment building, a knock on the door isn't something you get too very often, and usually turns out to be important (not people insistent on saving my sole (why they worry about eternal damnation of the bottom of my foot, I'll never know)). So, yes, it was someone important, a police officer. After he figured out who I was, he gave me a message... My mom was in the ICU in a hospital in Arizona. I called down to the hospital and got the info from my mom's nurse, which was simply, she was lucky to be alive. So, I laid down a nice chunk of cash and was on one of the earliest flights I could manage down to Arizona.

At the time, I started thinking about a few things, the biggest being the rest of my family. I have an older brother and sister, and I wondered if they knew what was going on. I tried calling the latest numbers I had for them, and they were all disconnected (heh). Days passed after I had gotten down there, I went to visit my mom every day and she was getting WAY better, but there was still no word from my brother or my sister. Finally, two days before I am planned to return to Seattle, I get in touch with my brother. As it turned out, he had my phone number the entire time, yet didn't call me because he didn't want me down there. Nice. When I talked to him, he started saying stuff like, "the only reason you came down here was because you thought mom was on her death bed and you wanted to get everything you could from her" (which is sooo not true) and "she's been broke because she sends you money" (also very far from true) and other stuff like that. He also made it a point to remind me about once every 15 minutes or so that he was mom's beneficiary and that I wasn't welcome in Arizona any more. Well, that one I told him to take up with our mother. Needless to say, the trip would have been much better if he had never known I was there.

One of my friends and I talked about the situation with me and my family. She told me that it appeared that I wanted my family to be proud of me, that I wanted them to look at what I have done with my life and give me a pat on the back for it. You know what, a part of that may be true. But it goes far beyond that, and it's hard to really describe in words because there are so many dimensions to it. Yes, I may want them to be proud of me, but first, I want them to not hate me for it. In the eyes of my family, I pretty much ran away. To be honest with you, though, I pretty much did. But I am a far better person for it, and that's something that they will never understand. When I look at what my fellow siblings did in their young-adult years, it's really not much different than myself. My brother was in the military for a while, and he had exactly the same opportunities I had. Well, he would tell you that he didn't, as he was married to a colored lady, which made him a constant target for racists, but the opportunity was still there. No matter the case, there will always be a grudge from him, and that's something I have to learn to live with. Another dimension to this all is that I want them to truly realize that they still do have the opportunity that I did and do myself. I wish that they could get rid of their victim mentality (which I really think comes from our mom, I admittedly had it when I was younger) and learn to refocus their energy. If they only spent as much effort striving for what they want that they do complaining about the people keeping them from it, it would be scary what they could do with their lives.

Well, anyways, there you go. I made a new post. I have to go study now.