{"id":553,"date":"2009-11-29T23:42:17","date_gmt":"2009-11-30T03:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/?p=553"},"modified":"2009-11-29T23:42:17","modified_gmt":"2009-11-30T03:42:17","slug":"everybody-has-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/everybody-has-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Everybody Has One."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0Ah.\u00a0 The holidays.\u00a0 A time to reflect and renew.\u00a0 A time to gather what is meaningful and put it all in one place.\u00a0 A time to gather all the family together and watch as the hours tick by, the great American unraveling.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While mashing the potatoes and sipping our chardonnay, my sister in law and I began a conversation that started with the latest mishaps of our bad seeded siblings.\u00a0 The black sheep.\u00a0 She went first with tales of abnormal misunderstood antics and joblessness and how at 46 her sister still had not managed to get it together.\u00a0 Then I added my black sheep woes.\u00a0 We could have switched out the names- her sister to my brother and the stories would have been the same.\u00a0 The path to nowhere certainly the same-met along the way with the same sort of people\u00a0wrapped\u00a0with\u00a0very, very poor decisions.\u00a0 We paused for a moment and then, with one last mash of potato, my sister in law said,<\/p>\n

“Everybody has one.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

One family member that seems to be the bane of nonexistence for the rest of the family.\u00a0 The underdone potato.\u00a0 The faulty wiring.\u00a0 The cog in the wheel that kept everyone from going anywhere. The one most scarred by….well, what?<\/p>\n

I think on this quite often.\u00a0 I wonder what went so terribly wrong with my brother to have him end up so lost.\u00a0 To\u00a0have connected with people-two of which he married-who only served to take him further down a path of self destruction.\u00a0 To bring children into this world who have turned out just like him.\u00a0 What went wrong?<\/p>\n

Now, don’t go all “non judgemental” on me.\u00a0 I tried the nonjudgmental route with him many times-but after 20 or so years of picking up the pieces and watching how his life effected so many-my judgement is a bit skewed.\u00a0 At one time, he had everything.\u00a0 A star athlete, a compassionate and sensitive\u00a0heart, and the adoration and enabling of not one-but both of my parents.\u00a0 He did little wrong.\u00a0 Did it all really go kaflooey when, as he claims, that first semester at college,him\u00a0with a walk on scholarship for football- he did that one single line of cocaine-and there the path of destruction started-and so ended his college and football life.\u00a0 Or, was it in that one sniff of a\u00a0moment -all his deep hurt( from what I don’t know) came to the surface.\u00a0 Or did that one loose wire finally snap.\u00a0 We might never know.\u00a0 We know all too well, that one moment led to a lifetime of everything gone wrong.\u00a0 My brother never bothered to look back.\u00a0 He has never mustered the courage to look forward.<\/p>\n

In and out of rehab-courtesy of my parents or anyone else willing to pay.\u00a0 In and out of a thick fog of deception and deceit- in and out of whatever con game would be the winning ticket.\u00a0\u00a0Everyone was fair game.\u00a0 Everyone.\u00a0 \u00a0And the great sadness-apart from the fact he had children he was not capable of raising?\u00a0 Once the con game begins-the people attracted to him were no better.\u00a0 Unless of course, they had a better con.\u00a0 He could not and never has broken the cycle.\u00a0 He tends to attract those most willing to do him the most harm.<\/p>\n

About a year ago I saw\u00a0my brother\u00a0for the first time in many years.\u00a0 I did not recognize him.\u00a0 He was bloated and red-eyed.\u00a0 He was talking but not making sense.\u00a0 Here was my brother but I had not a clue as to who he was.\u00a0 As the meeting\u00a0progressed, it became clear our relationship had been severed by years of his own behavior.\u00a0I was not willing anymore to be his sister.\u00a0 \u00a0I drew the line in the family sandbox.\u00a0 There was nothing to be gained anymore by trying.\u00a0 And more recently, I have drawn more lines in the family sandbox.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Legal lines\u00a0to serve and protect.\u00a0 To keep him out of harm’s way.\u00a0 Harm to others, not himself.\u00a0 This does not mean I don’t think of him-feel great sadness for him-and wonder what?\u00a0 What happened along the way-to my brother born a year after me.\u00a0 Who used to have it all.\u00a0 What went so terribly wrong?<\/p>\n

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