Growing Up

I have a brother who is about as stuck as someone can get.

He has been chewing on some childhood issues with my mother for most of his life. Sure, they are valid and he had a right to be mad, for awhile any way. But we run the risk of becoming defined by that anger if it is held onto for too long.

Both of my parents had rough childhoods and like most parents they sought to halt the cycle with their own children. But again like most parents (myself included) you find that once you have kids this is much easier said than done. Kids test you, they push you and they force you to look at yourselves in ways you may not be prepared to. When you find yourself yelling at a 6 month old baby for crying because she is hungry, you see a side of yourself that though you may have known was there, hadn't been forced to face before.

And so it was with my parents. My father absented himself and my mother set about to mold us into the people she thought we needed to be. This didn't always leave much room for us to decide for ourselves. My youngest brother was lucky. He was gifted with an easy going, logical way of looking at life, and being the youngest was able to either dodge a lot of it, or just let it pass over him. He's a good man and I am proud of him.

I'm the oldest and as such took much of the brunt of it, as is usually the curse of oldest children. But I had good friends and an interest in sports so I at least had an outlet for my physical aggression even if I still made it into my twenties being fairly confused about who I was. I met my wife when I was 19, and it can be said that she saved me. It wasn't easy, but I did it. I am now standing on the other side of that chasm enjoying my life, and making plans for the future.

But the middle one? Oh, what a mess. He didn't have any friends. He had no outlets but his poetry and his art, most of which was very dark and enabled the whole issue to multiply in on itself. So now he is 28, confused, tired, angry, sad and scared slowly drowning in his own emotions.

At some point in a normal persons life, the transition from child to adult happens fairly naturally, though albeit somewhat bumpily. We begin to take responsibility for ourselves and start making choices for ourselves and we learn to live with the consequences, good or bad, of those decisions. When something happens to us that derails that process, it is really hard to get back on. It is hard because not only did we not know we were on a track to begin with, but we have not yet developed the tools to get ourselves back there. So we fumble our way forward, confused and angry, lashing out at any perceived threat and disbelieving in happiness, a shiny object not to be trusted. Nothing feels right, we are not on our track. No matter what we do, not matter how we succeed or fail, we are not on our track.

So to find your track again, you need help. But asking people for help, requires trust, which in turn requires love and for most in this situation, this is virtually impossible. We are, most of us, habitually cruel to ourselves even if only in small ways. We suffer from doubt, from feelings of unworthiness, of self imposed lonliness, of imagined slights. We learn to content ourselves with very little, feeling that this is all we deserve or that this is all there is, as good as it gets. To step out of that small space is to step into the unknown. If we only knew that that fear of the unknown is so easily conquered, and is by far preferable to that small space of not-living.

And thus is the precipice on which my brother stands. My mother has done all he asked of her. I have provided all the advice and help that has been asked of me. And still he chooses to hold on to the anger and the spite. Still he lashes out, imposing his controls and putting those around him down, belittling them, just to feel superior for a few fleeting moments. To give himself the illusion of worth and of control.

You cannot help someone who does not want to be helped. To reach out your hand for help, to put your faith in trust is a right of passage, a way of proving to yourself that you are worth the aid you are asking for. It is the first step to learning to help yourself, and learning to open yourself up to the goodness that exists in all people all around us. It is the first step to getting yourself back on your tracks and to living the life you were meant to live. It is the first step of letting go of childish things and growing up.

It is never too late to do this but it can become too hard, too overwhelming as we leave it for too long. We only have so much strength to pull ourselves up off our knees. At some point we need to grow up, to open our eyes and see the truth that is before them, and to again accept responsibility for our choices. To choose to stand in the light, instead in the darkness we create.

You are in my prayers, my beloved brother. May you find your way to us again.