Care Package

This is funny. Literally, two seconds after finishing up my previous post about jealousy I was hit with such a tremendous dose of it that I went straight past petty envy to seething anger. So, let's just look at that last post as being about my gratitude for my friend Jasmyne, rather than the whole jealousy thing.

This will be my jealousy post. I've been going slightly stir-crazy since I lost my job. My afternoon with Jasmyne and my Uncle Joel were temporary antidotes, but barely 24 hours later their affect has been negated.

This week leading up to Christmas, my mother has made the holidays all about Andrew. That's only natural. He's just gotten to Iraq. His absence here is glaring. We all miss him. But where I differ from my mother (in kind, and certainly degree) is, for her, Christmas has to be all about Andrew... for everybody else... all the time.

A few of the gifts I put together for my family were 8X10 photographs of my brother with various people at Thanksgiving. I didn't get a picture with every person who stepped through the door, but I got a few. And I'm sure the people who I got pictures of will appreciate the gift. But seeing this, my mother got it in her head that everybody needed a similar picture with Andrew.

So, I was given a handful of prints to take to Walgreens this morning to make copies of, but there was one minor difference. The pictures I printed and framed were taken with a thousand dollar digital camera at its highest pixel rate that I touched up in Photoshop. The pictures my mother sent with me to Walgreens were taken with a $5.99 disposable from Wal-Mart. These photos make Civil War etchings look hi-res. I understand the sentiment, but the presentation is (to my perfectionist eyes) almost offensive.

Plus they're all just things. Things. My mother is losing her mind about things. Like a photo is necessary to remember my brother. My brother is on my mind every waking moment, and I don't have one photo anywhere around of him. I don't need one. I don't need a reminder. He's in my heart. And nobody who gets those shitty, disposable camera blow-ups are going to need them either.

But I digress.

As I was writing my previous post, my mother came home from an afternoon of shopping and ripped into my dad for not going to the post office for more boxes to mail to my brother. We have two full boxes already sitting in our house, yet to be mailed, and my mother was absolutely furious that my father (who has slept most of the afternoon and is sick as a dog) did not go get more. Just based on her weekly tally thus far, my brother is going to return home with thousands of dollars of books and DVDs and other tripe that there is no way he will be able to use (he does have a full-time job over there).

My mother has seemed to equate these care packages with proof of her love. If Andrew doesn't get as many packages as the other guys, or as good of stuff, she's going to feel in her mind that he feels unloved. It's completely irrational. My father and I don't have those concerns. He knows we love him and never for a moment will he doubt that while he's over there. That's why we don't write him e-mails every day. That's why we aren't pulling our hair out over these packages. And that's why my fuse is getting shorter and shorter with my mother's impatience with anybody who isn't the zealot she is.

The row between my parents was only a primer for what finally set me off (in my own repressed, low-key way). My brother spent three hours at Wal-Mart this afternoon. She returned home with at least ten bags of shit, and no wonder she threw a fit about not having enough boxes. All ten of those bags were going over to Iraq.

But wait (INSERT GIANT RED X HERE), there's more.

As I walked through the dining room, I saw a row of eight gift bags lined up on the table in front of my mother with the names of the men from my brother's unit written on the side. As I felt my stomach turn to lead I watched as my mother carefully sorted a table full of gum, candy, playing cards, etc. and dropped them delicately, one-by-one, into each bag. I scoured the table and saw that this wasn't some random collection of things. My mother put a lot of thought and care into what she dropped into those bags. She spent an afternoon gathering the materials, God knows how long actually planning the whole thing. I can deal with the overstuffed boxes Andrew will be getting over the next year, but something about the love and care my mother was putting into these unnecessary packages for his men -- I lost it.

And again, it wasn't about the things. My mother did all of her shopping for the entire family in two hours last night, so I'm certain there won't be anything stuffed under our M.I.A. Christmas tree that shares a tenth of the thought and care those gift bags got. My presents will be pulled off my half-assed list with all the passion of a refrigerator post-it. No imagination. No desire. Just something to cross of the weekly to-do.

It hit me tonight that I need to leave this house. I don't care if I continue to live paycheck to paycheck, with no chance of putting money into savings. My mother is a zombie, essentially spending the year in Iraq with my brother. I can deal with being ignored, but not to my face. As much as I can, I'm living this year aware of my brother, but not chained to him. I have to do other things or I'll lose my mind. My mother is the opposite. She can't do other things, or she'll feel that she's neglecting her baby.

Hmm. Irony.

Fuck. Happy Holidays.