I think everything is starting to get to me and I'm pretty burned out after all these crises one right after the other. Now I learned today that I do in fact have a new stenosis at Lumbar 5/Sacal 1 (L1/S1), and I have an epidural shot scheduled for next week for the pain. So far the neurological symptoms are too bad, mostly tingling in the feet and only a little weakness in the legs. I think it's affecting my gastro-intestinal system though.
I'm still dealing with things around mom's death and the family, but that's going to take some time to come to grips with it, and whatever implications there might be.
And the condo search is taking longer than I'd like too, and it turns out that there aren't many options of places that meet my criteria.
But the reason I'm posting this time is to discuss my relationship with my brothers. It was nice that while I was in Seattle staying with a family friend for the funeral a month ago I mentioned something I was getting frustrated about as being a male thing going on in the family and he said he recognized it too. (He's known the family pretty well over many years.) I find it encouraging when someone else has observances that mesh with mine, as it serves as a kind of confirmation that my observational skills are pretty good, and it seems they generally are pretty accurate.
I have to decide how I'm going to relate to my brothers now. Ever since I returned to Florida over a year ago now I haven't been filling out "emergency contact" forms, and if I have to put anyone I designate my pastor as the emergency contact. Within this context I've thought of what the implications might be or should be regarding naming my brothers as beneficiaries in financial matters. The thing is, of, course, that I don't have anyone else, so I'm stuck. Or am I? It's been my observation of people from the two generations before me that this kind of felt dilemma makes people make otherwise uncharacteristic compromises of one sort or another. Such compromises generally don't sit too well with me. That doesn't mean I'm above such compromises altogether, but Scripturally such compromises are sin in as much as "whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23).
The latest dialogue dealing with these relationships regards my contention that mom was the last person who really loved me. I mentioned feeling like this (among other things) in an e-mail to my brothers, which they (rather predictably) vehemently protested. But is this a case of where "methinks thous protests too much" could be an issue? Also, I'd like to turn to another Scripture, although I might be doing so somewhat out of context; that is James 4:20: "But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?" Or more aptly, I John 3:18: "Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth."
Now before I get in to this too much, I should say that I am just as guilty of this as my brothers are. On my part my neglect of my brothers has been fairly intentional, such as in response to something one of them did or said and/or an attempt to avoid partaking in what I see as unhealthy familial interpersonal relations. But, no matter what the reason, the end result is basically the same I think.
The recent time where the contrast between mom's relationship to me and my brothers' relations with me are in direct contrast was when I was in the hospital last January after my cervical surgery. I didn't hear from my brothers at all during that time, but mom called me a lot, especially that day after the operation when I was in so much pain and not being adequately treated for it. She really was very upset that I was in so much pain... because she loved me.
The other thing that comes to mind on this issue dates from the month before I left my brother in New England to return here to Florida. As it happened I was supposed to start on a Cognitive Behavior Therapy treatment, but ended out instead dealing with what was going on there and other relevant family issues. As one point the psychologist asked me if it must be confusing to her my brother there say he loved me when he was treating me like he was. I shrugged this suggestion off, saying that I mostly ignored it, but I thought my brother really did think he loved me, but I thought his concept of love is warped. It's hard to say anything has really changed in the past year or so since then.
This, then brings us back to the issue of whether or not my brothers and I love each other. I mostly think we don't although I think they love each other.
The other thing is something I've talked with one of my cousins about, and that is my determination that our family runs on a "survival of the fittest" mentality. She picked up on this and agreed wholeheartedly, thinking in the broader family terms (I just meant my parents and brothers and I, but she interpreted it in extended family terms). In this value system, mom was the weakest link and now I am the weakest link, followed by my handicapped nephew who has muscular dystrophy. Now we all know what happens to "weakest links," at least in Darwinian terms. Weakest links get shoved aside and left to die while the stronger and more fit forge ahead, or climb some kind of ladder of success (however "success" might be defined). I hope you can see how the weakest link is not exactly the object of massive quantities of love, or at least might feel that way.
Unfortunately, I wasn't in a position to help mom much and the males in the family pretty much saw to that, making my role to be one of encourager, which was touted as being very important in the grand scheme of things. Early on after dad's death 5 years ago I offered to live with mom but that was responded to with resounding nos. Short of that, from a distance there wasn't much I could do without entangling myself in familial relations I didn't want to get caught up in. The other thing I did a few times was call someone back there in Seattle to help out in one way or another. But that's about all I could do. A few times I called mom right when she was having problems and so was able to help out from a distance in that way. But she was not good at reaching out when she needed help. She maybe called 2 or 3 times for help after dad's death, but those were the exception. And she never seemed to reveal her struggles with me like she did with my brothers. I think that's partly because she saw me in some ways as competition, which I won't go into now, but that's a whole other issue by itself. Let's just say that this is where the book "In the Company of Women" could be helpful.
But to return to the issue at hand, I need to decide what my response is going to be to my brothers' assertions that they love me. By response I mean how I think about it primarily, but also what my response actions might or should be. I really don't want to get caught up in unhealthy family relations, but it would be difficult to completely break ties with my brothers, so I have to figure out what my response will be.
It's late and I"m tired... Good night.
6/1/11 (next day) Addendum:
After thinking about this post I thought of a couple other things I should add or clarify.
First of all, I don't know that my brother in Seattle could have done any better than he did at taking care of mom. He did get frustrated with her sometimes, but I'm not sure that my other brother or I would have done much, if any, better on that score. If there was anyone who was better in this regard it was dad. My other brother might have gotten angry (or possibly even angrier), but I might have been more inclined to sort of make moratoriums with mom, which could have left her to her own devices more. This may or may not have been a good thing. To a certain extent it could have been helpful (regarding her well-being), but at other times it could have been tantamount to abandoning her. That would depend, to a large degree, on her response to being left with more responsibility for her own care and how I handled giving it to her. Sometimes being given more responsibility can encourage more self-effort, but there would have to have been certain safety mechanisms in place that didn't just left her high and dry if she messed up and I don't know how good I would have been at that part of it - making sure there were appropriate safety mechanisms in place. This would have been much like taking the parenting role in dealing with her.
The other issue regarding my relationship with my brothers has to do with sibling "equality." I don't remember this being an issue until dad started saying things about it starting sometime when I was living in Russia during the 1990s. My recollection was that he put it in terms of him being limited in how much he could help me because my brothers were demanding more equality in our parents dealings with us kids. I'm not sure how this transpired between my parents and brothers, so I can't really speak about that. I don't remember really having a problem with this except that I blamed my dad for a lot of my problems anyway, as I've discussed a lot in this blog. I didn't see him as being to blame for any difficulties my brothers had in which they might have needed help. But in general I don't think outside of my problems being related to dad I don't think I had a problem with this premise. But I did see a potential of this equality issue as being a sort of scape goat to get dad off the hook for my problems. Of course dad might not have been directly the cause of any of my problems. That is, he didn't make me do anything or order any of my problems. So it was an indirect causation at best, and the more indirectly the problem could be attributed to being related to him and his work the harder it would be to expect him to try to compensate for my problems or help me get out of them. So at some point the finger would have turned to be pointing more at me and less at him as far as taking responsibility is concerned. To a certain extent, I think, this is justified, but in one way it isn't. What I mean is that it depends on how much one considers past events as having a bearing on current events. The logic might go something like this:
I probably never would have had the problems I did with the Vienna mission if it weren't for dad's work.
If I hadn't had problems with the Vienna mission I wouldn't have had to change careers (missions being all but a closed door at that point).
If dad hadn't been in the work he was the Soviet guest I helped host during the Seattle Goodwill Games wouldn't have been someone other than who we expected and probably a spy (with no other known reason for why he was there).
If I hadn't helped host a Soviet guest at the Goodwill Games who was most likely a Soviet spy I probably wouldn't have gotten the call I did the next January inviting me to the Soviet Union to teach ESL.
If I had been invited to teach ESL in the Soviet Union by a group who ended out being the Young Communist League (although they denied it vehemently) I wouldn't have had the problems I did in the USSR/Russia.
If I hadn't been invited to the USSR under questionable circumstances I would not have had the trouble I did leaving Russia for good in 1997.
If I hadn't had the political problems I had to that point I wouldn't have had the problems I did with the universities in Indiana and Pennsylvania in trying to make me do or be something I didn't want to do or be. (You'll have to wait for more details on that until I get closer to that point in my autobiography.)
If I hadn't had problems with the universities and then with jobs too I wouldn't have had to make another career change to become a librarian.
Etc., etc.
After I left Russia the connection with dad became gradually more and more tenuous. The most likely continuing connection would have been something akin to being based on hearsay or the like. I'm not quite sure how I can attribute these experiences to dad, other than it just felt like my problems were too systematic and predictable to be just coincidence. Of course, this is exactly how dad might appear justified in not accepting responsibility for my life experiences. And the rest of the family would have not understood these things so anything past Russia they wouldn't have attributed at all to him. But I think dad also might have honestly thought those involved in security related to his work (or former work, depending on the point of time in question) had strict legal boundaries that they adhered to. In other words, he attributed to these security-related individuals and institutions a certain integrity and ethical nobility, which I've come to question, to say the least. Fortunately for me I'm not the only one who has ever questioned these things. I say "fortunately" because it gives me a little more credibility. Whether or not I have credibility and/or security organizations and individuals have integrity does not prove that in particular situations I was a victim of monkey business. Rather, it only opens up the possibility that I was such a victim.
Still, I did make my own choices along the way and I have to take responsibility for those choices. The main issue I have here is regarding how free I was to make the choices I did. Some of the limitations might include my value system, how much political manipulation was going on, and how much relevant information I had (or lacked) in order to make good decisions.
I think that's enough for now and I have to go to physical therapy.
