Brother From Another Mother
My brother is getting shipped out on Tuesday. That was the news in the phone call I got from dad two days ago. Where my brother will go, specifically, we don't know. In my best guesstimate, applying my own "specially different" (as someone I know would say) brand of political insight, it is unlikely he will be stationed in Bora Bora.
Ever since a staff meeting back in January when a colleague made a totally funny quip about the strong possibility of Bush The Moronotron giving The Big Command, I've been in complete denial about my brother being sent out to fight in this war. A week before that staff meeting he'd just been called into active duty and we were told that he'd be at the training camp for at least two weeks before heading out overseas. I told very few people. None of them were work people as I tend to keep my work life and my personal life pretty separate.
But that morning in the conference room, as everyone laughed at the war joke (I couldn't tell you what the funny was now if my life depended on it -- I think it was some Jack Handey reference about fighting battles with banana peels or something ridiculous like that), I laughed too. Heartily. That is, until I stopped laughing without realizing I'd chosen to do so and I felt my heart swell up inside my chest and my guffaws took a sudden, wide swinging turn. There I was, sobbing in the presence of the entire staff. They soon realized something had gone terribly wrong and the poor soul who'd made the joke looked shamed though he had no idea what he'd done. Of course, he'd done nothing wrong. That my emotions chose that particular moment to rear its messy head was almost as much of a mystery to me as it was to those around me. It was one moment where I came out of the state of shock I'd been in. Once I burst out of that, I headed straight in to denial and that's where I've been ever since.
I've been working hard at not letting the outrage overload reach the surface. Repression, suppression -- whatever you want to call it -- not the healthiest thing in the world. I think it has a lot to do with never having gotten over September 11, the day that changed our lives forever, especially here in New York. In its aftermath, I couldn't tear myself away from the news. It was all CNN, MSNBC and New York 1 all the time. It was bad. I'd spend hours at a time in bed in front of the television. I cried a lot. I slept a lot. I had nightmares from which I'd awake screaming. Almost a year later, I stopped watching the news almost altogether. I could barely even bring myself to read the paper anymore. Just the thought of it made me tired. Now that we are at war, this refusal -- or, fear really -- to watch the news or read about it has helped me maintain this level of denial. Last night I turned on the TV for one second before the Oscars and heard Bush saying something about how we should make no mistake about it, this war will be over in a manner of weeks. Then I watched him stuck in silence for an excruciating ten seconds that felt like an hour as he tried to figure out what to say next. I slapped the power button on the remote before I started yelling at the TV. You fucking asshole. I don't believe a single word you say.
Until now, my brother's been sitting up at the Army base, bored and anxious and wanting to go home. I thought maybe he would never get shipped out. The longer he stayed at the training camp the easier it was for me to convince myself that he wouldn't have to go. I kept thinking, "He's 41. He's in the Reserves. His unit will be the last to go and maybe by that time this will all be over with. They're going to send everyone else before they send him." My dad was like, "They have sent everyone else. Everyone's already over there. There's no one left to send."
My dad called me with the news right after he spoke to my brother from the Army base. My brother had wanted to make all the calls himself but after speaking to my sister-in-law and their kids, he decided to let my dad do it. He said my brother had to send all of his belongings home to his wife and just take with him "what he needs". Like, for WAR. That's something one can assume, but it chills you to the bone to hear it. Two weekends ago, my brother was given leave from the Army base. My sister-in-law called my father and asked him if he wanted some company. She told him that she was going to come by for a visit with my five-year-old neice and three-year-old nephew. When my dad opened the front door, the kids came rushing in all giggles and bundles of energy. Right behind them, in walked my brother. When my dad told me quietly, "it was a nice surprise," I almost lost it. I should have gone to visit that weekend but I didn't. Denial only gets you so far.
I'm afraid that if I let all of this sink in I'll never recover. I myself will sink under the weight of despair and I won't know what to do with all of the anger and anxiety and sadness. I'm afraid if I start crying now, I'll never stop. I'm afraid I'll never get out of bed and that I'll never sleep without bad dreaming. While something like eighty percent of Americans support the war, the majority of New Yorkers feel much differently. I wish everyone was a New Yorker.
So, denial is the current theme in my life but I'm trying to break out of it. Which is why I'm feeling slightly traumatized and perpetually stoned. I think I'm in denial about the state of my love life too. It's all about fear. Fear of commitment, fear of feeling, fear, fear, fear. Emotionally bankrupt may not be a totally inaccurate term to describe my current state of being. My family factors in to this as well. I'm being forced to face the fact head on that my brother and I have never been close and all the discomfort and feelings of guilt that that implies. (...Hm. How's that for burying the lead?)
Wait. I can hear someone calling out to me right now. "Honey, your BROTHER is going to WAR. Deal with it." I think it's my imaginary boyfriend.
