I had quite an interesting weekend. I call it interesting because I'm really not sure what else to call it. I'm really not sure how I feel about it. I feel a lot of things, but mostly numb. Like I've spent so many years in the arctic that the cold doesn't really phase me anymore. Except there are moments when a gust of wind pelts me in the face and I don't feel numb anymore. I feel like I might explode.

It's hard to get through those moments. It's like wading through a river but the mud is so thick and it clings to my shoes, making it hard for me to pick my feet up and make it back to dry land. In those moments, it feels really difficult. When I'm on dry land, though, I feel okay. I sometimes even feel strong.

My little brother got married on Saturday. My little brother. He got married.

It's strange. You live with someone for eighteen years (or something like that, depending on your situation, but this is probably the average) and then all the sudden, you'll never live together again. It feels so sad. I know that it isn't, not really, but it feels that way sometimes, when you're back in a room together and you're making jokes that only the two of you will understand and you just wish that you could go back to having side-by-side bedrooms so that you could run over and show them the new song you found whenever you wanted to and laying on the living room floor every Christmas eve, eating apple crisp that Mom made before she went rogue, or maybe Dad made it because I can't really remember a time when Mom wasn't rogue, watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. You want to go back to that just for a few minutes, so you can really appreciate it, because back then you were too young to understand that you needed to be paying attention.

The thing is, I was very aware as a kid. I paid too much attention. I was too worried about NOT remembering the moments, not holding on to the good stuff, I think because there was little of it, that instead of just enjoying the moment, I was too busy trying too hard to enjoy the moment. Not every moment was like that, but there were many. So now, looking back, I see how my obsession with creating good memories is actually what makes it hard for me to distinguish what was actually good and what I forced to be good in my mind. Maybe it was my way of protecting myself. I think it was.

So, anyway, my brother got married. He still looks and acts like my brother, but now he's more than just my brother. He's a husband. I wonder if he thought about this when I got married, but I know the answer is probably no. He does not over-analyze. Ever. He does not worry. He just lives. Why can't I be that way too?

My mom called me while I was on my way to the rehearsal dinner. She screamed at me for ten minutes straight. I let her scream. She was the one who hung up. She told me how horrible of a person I was for going. I still went. She has no idea how hard this whole thing was for me. I don't think that she cares. It isn't my fault that my stepmother didn't invite her. I have always had to pay for the destruction of my parent's relationship. I have always had to take the beating when one of them feels like punching each other. I have always been the one to do the clean-up. I have always been the one to continue to be nice even with my bruises. And I have always been the one to keep getting walked on. How can I always be the one walked on, yet always have to be the first to apologize?

She still came to the wedding, although I'm not sure why, because she refused to speak to anyone. I don't want to think this, but that makes me think that she came just to ruin Laban's day. And that infuriates me. I went up to her to say hello and she wouldn't look at me. I still wasn't sure what I possibly could have done wrong so I just walked away. Then Laban asked me to hand her and her mother their corsages, and I did. She said she didn't want it and threw it down. I walked away again. I was just so tired. So tired of being the one to stand there and take the blows.

Right before Laban walked down the aisle to stand in his place and wait for his bride, he said "If she is going to come here and act like that on my wedding day, then fuck her."

I don't like to use that word, but I'm trying to be honest in these posts so that in the future I know exactly what has happened.

All I could muster up the strength to say was "Today is about you and Bailey."

I didn't defend my mom. I couldn't. There was nothing good to defend in that moment.

I get punished by my mom if I associate myself with my stepmom. I get punished by stepmom if I associate myself with my mom. And either way, it seems to me, my dad just doesn't love me the way that I thought he did when I was younger. The way that I need him to. Because he is always the one asking me to do the mending, the reaching out, the initiation. All the hard work, basically. He says it is because he knows I can handle it. But what if I can't?

I'm tired. I'm just so tired. In some ways, though, I feel stronger than I ever have been. How can I feel both ways at once? Maybe I feel stronger, but I wonder if the strength is enough.

I don't know Bailey very well, but she seems very sweet. And my brother, well, he means everything to me. He is part of the one thing in my childhood that was purely and wholly good: my brothers. I just want us all to end up on the side of love that is good and stays good. I just want us to have a life that is good. Isn't that all that anybody really wants?