10-17-04 @ 10:23 am EDT

To the two e-mails (and any future ones) in response to my last entry:

This entry actually had nothing to do with my own troubles regarding e-mailing others...so I'm not currently upset with or planning on not writing to anybody. (If I don't write anyway, I just slipped again and don't mind being sent a "normal" e-mail to prompt me to respond. By "normal," I mean just any regular e-mail somebody would normally send when I'm not throwing a fit. I tend to clam up when I get sent sympathy e-mails because they make me feel guilty for getting upset in the first place. I mean, here I go, bitching about e-mails, when I haven't yet replied to the people who ARE e-mailing me. :( Whenever I do that I never mean to minimize or trivialize the e-mails I DO get. It's just that they happen to be exceptions to the rule...)

Anyway...the entry had mostly to do with the situation regarding my brother. I DO feel stupid every time I send a humongous e-mail to somebody, no matter what their reply, but like I said that's because of me--I pour out too much crap in my e-mails and do not like dumping those on people, because nobody needs that stuff. In this case I sent my brother a huge e-mail...I didn't even look at the size, I was too embarrassed...and he sent a short response. And I felt even stupider. We were discussing religion, which was why I had replied to him in the first place, as he has suddenly become quite Christian. The fact that we seem to disagree so much, and that he's now very religious, makes me feel threatened (although I know it shouldn't...I have a prejudice against Christianity, I realize); and his short reply stating his own religious beliefs, in response to my HUGE longwinded stupid e-mail regarding MY beliefs, made me feel very stupid, that I should not have shared all that with him. He'd asked me to, but I could have at least been concise with it. I feel like I dumped all over him and probably insulted his own beliefs somewhere along the way. I never know when to close my mouth.

Add to all of that the fact that he stated he wanted us to get to know one another better, seeing as we were always more siblings "in name" rather than in spirit, and he regrets that, and...I just have no idea how to reply. I have always been jealous of my brother, but he has no idea, that I'm aware of. I was the academic achiever while he was the popular one; he was always getting in trouble with Dad, whereas I was the baby of the family, but if he only knew how I've envied his confidence and success all these years. Look back on old entries in Skew. I actually thought up a suicide note when I heard his wife was pregnant. That's how upset it got me. (NO, I'm not actively suicidal, nor was I then...but I'm always latently suicidal. That's another entry though.) He's accomplished everything, whereas I've done absolutely nothing. I know I am a huge disappointment to my parents. I've always had my brother up on some sort of pedestal, and so his abrupt conversion threatened that, too. I have lots of very mixed feelings regarding this but basically I hated that I had spewed all my own stupid tripe at him, and feel even stupider that he seems to want to get to know me whereas...I have absolutely nothing of worth to say to him.

I mean, face it--I do the same things every day, things of no meaning. The only thing of meaning in my life is writing...and there is no chance I will blather to him about that. He would not be interested, and besides, my writing is full of all sorts of non-Christian, occult, incesty, gay, adult-type things, even my PG-13 writing...I do not even WANT to know his view on gays. So of course I'm terrified of him finding out mine. For some reason, it's just so much harder for me to find out that I disagree with my brother, than that I disagree with my parents. Like I said...pedestal. I always thought we shared similar views on the world, now I see I'm wrong. And it scares me.

On the one hand I don't really want to get to know him much more than I already do, if it means finding out he's against all the things I personally am for...and on the other hand, I don't really want him to get to know ME, for the same reason, and because there's nothing really to know! "How was your day, Rach?" "Well, I got up, watched TV, ate, went online, listened to music, wrote, went to bed..." And the next day and the next day and the next. All that does is remind me how useless I am and how much HE has accomplished. And that's humiliating, and he does not need to be bored with my crap.

Have you ever run into an old friend and have them ask you what you've been doing lately? Have you ever had any reason to be ashamed of your answer? Know that feeling? That's happened to me several times, including recently. An old friend and schoolmate of mine works at Wal-Mart. We ran into each other and of course it was "Hello," "Hello, "How are you doing?" "Fine," which was okay, but then came "SO WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING LATELY?"

"Nothing." Either that or they ask me if I have a job or something and the answer is still the same...I can't make eye contact...I can barely even speak. I just kind of turn my head and mumble, "Nothing really..." Then they always look awkward, and all I can do is hope they do not ask many more questions before leaving. The last time this happened, after a few more questions the guy just turned and wandered away. He was probably embarrassed too--for me. I always want to run and hide whenever I see old friends now. I do not want them to know what a failure I am.

I know that growing up, my brother resented how I was Dad's favorite and could get away with anything whereas he always got yelled at; I'm willing to bet he resented that I got the good grades while his were average. How do I even begin to tell him that while he was jealous of that, I have always been jealous of all HE has been? And I have reason to be! Which one of us, after all, is the one who made something of themselves in life? I'll give you a hint--it wasn't me.

I just completely dread the thought of having to tell him what sort of failure I really am. Maybe he already knows--I mean, he knows I live with our parents and have no job or life. But he has no clue how miserable I've been for how many years, how I write horrid things, how my fiction is my ONLY friend, how I wish every day that I could die, how I hurt myself, how I resent everything he is, and a ton of other things...and I do not want him to know all that. All there is to me is my writing, and bad stuff, and one of those he is not interested in and the other I certainly do not want to dump all over him.

I actually wrote him an e-mail outlining all this, all my resentment and jealousy and why I think it would be a good idea if we did not communicate further as he seems to want us to...it's a good thing I wrote it after logging off else I probably would've sent it. I didn't send it. Still haven't. I considered just editing out the part where I said I hurt myself (how do I even start to explain that?--I didn't even DARE mention my adult writing, or feelings toward gays!), but then didn't send it at all. I still have not written back. In both his main e-mails he made a point of saying I was welcome to come down there and stay with them if need be. Why would he tell me that? Does he think I do not want to be here? In any case, they are worse off financially than WE are! I could never impose on my brother...I even considered that option when thinking of what will become of me when Ma and Dad retire. (I never brought up the S word in my unsent e-mail, though I came close.)

I'm losing track of this. I guess what I mean is basically, that's all that was going through my head--all this fear of letting my brother down, and of him letting me down. I'm used to us being distant. We were never close, and I just assumed that was the way it was meant to be. I've never, EVER been affectionately close with ANYONE and the thought of being so now scares me to death. Especially since there's nothing to me but ugliness. Except for some of my writing--MAYBE. And that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I'm inclined to believe that for most, it's ugly or at best just dull. It's pathetic that my only reason for happiness comes from writing. Especially when I know he wouldn't care for it. Doesn't he realize that there's nothing TO get to know about me, that he would want to know? See how upset I've gotten over what little I've learned about him? Why should he want to hear all MY crap?

And so I have not even replied to him yet. And have no idea how to do so. Maybe I'll just wait until he e-mails me again, if ever, and just apologize for my long crappy e-mail and promise not to send another. And then make sure to keep all future replies very terse. Please remember, this entry and the previous one had nothing to do with anyone else I'm e-mailing. I'm just mad at myself for writing those long crappy things all the time. Short responses tell me that I need to write shorter e-mails, and I'm angry that I don't know how. I'm not angry with the people who write them. I'm the only one out there who writes 60kb e-mails, so that says something needs to change.

I think I probably made things worse with this entry. :/ I hope neither minds that I replied in this way...but I feel too ashamed to reply to sympathy e-mails or anything regarding that last entry. Whenever I post something like that and get a response, I always just wish I had never posted it at all. Normal e-mails make me feel good. Responses to crap like that...I wish I could have shut my mouth even more. I hate inflicting that junk on the people who read this thing. Nobody deserves to read that. -_-

So...again I hope nobody minds that I posted this here rather than in a reply...I feel so stupid about the last entry that I don't know if I could ever reply to that. I wish things would go back to normal...including my writing.

I'm trying to think of a gift to make P. for Christmas, since I do not know his birthday, but I have absolutely no design ideas...all I can think for some reason is "blue." :/ I need to think more.