Friday, 01.12.2018 - 11:59 pm.
Well, hello from my own country. After a very long but, thankfully, uneventful journey, I made it. I've had little trouble adjusting to the time zone, the jet lag has been kind to me. It is easier when you gain hours, I suppose, and plus, I'm always living in this time zone at the back of my head. The heat hasn't been too severe, too, and I've seen my family for mealtimes (Brother and SIL 3 took me out to dinner tonight!).
Right. My family has become an increasingly difficult subject for me, not because I have troubles with them, but because I'm uncovering some things, and seeing others under a different light. Today, for lunch, it was my mom, my dad, Brothers 1 and 3, Sister, and me. We were only missing Brother 2, who is flying in right this moment.
My parents are very happy having me around, and life has spared me from seeing the worst of their illnesses. They're both doing pretty well, although their day-to-day sucks. I'll say it bluntly: my dad is emotionally abusive towards my mom, always has been. This is not news to me now, although I only realized it as an adult. With age and illness, this has gotten worse, but they feed off each other and there's no fixing this. It makes sense to me, now, that when I was younger I would sometimes wish that my mom divorced my dad. Divorce is horrible, but I hated how he treated her. There were no beatings, no screaming, no insulting. It was something so much trickier.
I'm staying with Brother 1 at an apartment that he and SIL 1 have bought, to put it up for rent. Last night, he was a bit drunk and spilled a lot of things about our family, from both my mom and dad side. I'll get to that later, but also, over the years, I've learned bits from Brother 1's life as he was growing up, and while I thought I had it rough with my overprotective parents, he also had his share of trouble. Probably all my siblings did, each in their own way, but I came much later and missed a lot of things.
I'd say that my dad tends to annul people. He's somewhat narcissist and gets angry easily if he doesn't get the attention and recognition that he thinks he, or his ideas, deserve. It's all about him and his version. It's funny to put it in words. I've finally put it into words. Wait, haven't I done this before here? Maybe at some point I said he had a pathological personality. Well, he does.
So I learn two things from Brother 1. I mean, I learned many things, but two stood out:
- My mom's family, coming from Spanish conquerors, owned land. Like, a lot of land. Like, if our country is divided in 14 big pieces, that family owned one of them. But they lost their land to family disputes, partying and gambling and sex. I did not know that my grandfather ran a prostitution business. I mean, HOLY SHIT. Brother 1 was a child when our grandfather started talking to him like he was his business partner, telling him they could start with a girl or two, but that was because he was starting to get dementia. And my grandmother, she had her temper and a gun.
- My dad's side...my great grandfather was a Spanish priest. A priest, having children! The scandal! That's explains that in my family we're tall and we have white skin when usually people from our country are more dark-skinned and shorter. I knew, thanks to one of my uncles, of the Spanish background, but I didn't know priesthood was involved. Fuck my dad and everyone else in this family who've fought to erase this because it's "embarrassing" for the family.
Brother 1 is more aware of all the shit that's been going down in the family. I came in too late and barely know anything. However, I think I should start talking to a few of my aunts and uncles and try to register these and other stories from my ancestors. It's so cool to know all this, and both sides have amazing stories. I mean, the stories are mostly about shitty people and how I ended up not owning land, but there you go.
And speaking of stories and shitty people, Brother 1 (I love him but he can be quite a jackass) just came to the apartment, completely hammered. He couldn't even open the door, he walked past straight me with vacant eyes, and now he's snoring like a monster in his bedroom. It was a disappointing sight. I've known he's an alcoholic, I'd just never seen the aftermath.
There are so many feelings to unpack, but I'm losing cognitive power fast, I guess I'll stop here. I have a long day of family celebration tomorrow.
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