I know this should be simple, but it isn’t.  I also know it is simple for those outside of me to have a clear opinion, and yet we just end up with a tug-o-war inside over what to do.

To call or not to call.  To send a card or not send a card.  Thankfully we don’t have the problem of “to visit or not to visit.”

This year it is complicated by the most recent memory which has really made an impact on our system for a myriad of reasons.  So there is more tug to ignore him and avoid him instead of doing the expected or “right” thing or “nice” thing or something like that.  I sense there is at least one insider who always reverts to “it will hurt his feelings” and will feel the impact of his assumed feelings and pushes for us to do whatever is necessary to not hurt his feelings.  I guess she sees the human qualities in him and his fragile self or something.  Another told Cec in therapy this past week that she hated him.  I’m not sure that I really have any feelings about him or toward him one way or the other; it seems I’m swayed whichever way those inside I hear or sense the most at whatever moment in time.

Not doing anything will just increase our anxiety as time passes and add tension within the family dynamics.  We went through the worst of that years ago and perhaps we wish to avoid it because it took a lot out of us at the time.  It is one of the reasons Julie-In-Pink was created– she was determined at whatever cost to make sure we followed through and continued on the healing path, irregardless of the family pressure and abuse we received for breaking the secrets, going to therapy, support groups, etc.

For a number of recent years, we’ve been sort of “hiding” and ‘getting by’ this day, his birthday, and other holidays by trying to purchase a card ‘from us,’ i.e., my brother and I.  This year my brother bought a card and it was one of those record your voice kinds and he took care of it and sent it off before we saw one another and so I wasn’t able to add my name to it.  I found another funny “us” card that was very basic and saw my brother today and he signed it with me and so we seem to have agreed to send the father a funny card that is extremely basic.  Yet every time we think about sending it, I hear someone inside basically ranting about sending him a fuck you card or imagining and planning a way to create cards specifically for people who come from abusive and dysfunctional homes but are still in a situation where (for whatever reasons) they choose to send a card.

Someone is also wanting me to explain that because I have this reputation or this kind of sweet spirit that is mushy and gushy in a number of ways, that a) people expect that of me and b) I often pick out those kind of cards… though not always.  So while it could be a solution to purchase a very simple and generic card or a funny card all the time, it still triggers the one inside (or someone like her) who identifies with his humanness and frailties and his feelings and she says he would notice the detached kind of card that is nearly blank with a Happy Father’s Day message to it, and hence, that would hurt his feelings, because he knows we aren’t “like that.”  That other people would get other kinds of cards and that this was a ‘bad card,’ to send him because it isn’t personalized or anything really.  Sigh.

So I’m sitting here with this dilemma and impending decision that needs to be made soon if I’m going to call tonight.  He’s 3 hours ahead of me and it is already a little after 8:00 P.M. here.  My brother called me just before we began writing this entry saying that he had talked to dad and that dad was asking about me.  Dad was wondering how I was doing and what my phone number was– he doesn’t have my new address or phone and my brother doesn’t have any of it memorized as he just uses the caller ID function and hasn’t plugged it into his phone and stuff.  I could tell I was sounding resistant to calling dad and my brother was trying to be really non-pushy about it and saying “if I wanted to,” etc.  He said he was sure dad was thinking of his kids today of all days.  I realized I wasn’t expending the energy on the phone to hide and cover my resistance and lack of excitement over calling dad and so I actually told my brother why.  I told him that I was divided over whether to call him because I had a recent memory.  I left it at that, but my brother knows what I’ve accused the father of doing.  Oddly I started to write “my father” and realized that was out of place because he is also my brother’s father, clearly.  We have this odd habit of doing that too regularly in writing or speaking– (saying my mother and my father)— when my brother is part of the context in some kind of way and I find that interesting and wonder what it means.  I wonder if it is a system thing because some inside don’t want the “our” aspect to be construed as meaning them when it is supposed to mean our brother and I/us, or if it is some really weird family dynamic thing where I have my parents and my brother has his parents.

So shit.  We fucking don’t know what to do.  It’s getting later and later.  Some want to not deal with it and think about calling tomorrow.  Some want to not call at all.  Some think we should call.  Some want to call and get it over with.  Others want to go to bed and hide under the covers and “think about it” and make a decision there…. and this is the comical part because that is a supposed type of thing that is supposed to happen but instead it will lead to sleep and then when we wake up it will be in the middle of the night and too late to call him then.  So then we’ll be right back at the dilemma problem again, though we might have a little bit more headway on a decision… but it would only be the decision of the moment that would change again at any time or in the future when faced with this situation once again.

Uggh.  This shit sucks.

we don’t mean to be bad. we been trying to not talk about the bad stuff so much. it just hurts and makes us sad and we can’t stop thinking and remembering that memory that got showed to Julie. i don’t think it got told or showed to everybody in here but i know some peoples finded out about it cuz things go through the grapevine. like Julie hears and learns stuff from L.J. that she wouldn’t have if she didn’t have a connection to L.J. and so and so knows this part or that piece and it just passes through. and I think now that memory is in our shared fact space and that makes it even more ickier and sadder too cuz we don’t want it in the fact place and the shared place. it’s not supposed to be there. it’s supposed to be hidden and secret and not seen and not told and not true and not fact and not real.

we got this memory that more than one of us is thinking and knowing about and really the brain is just making it flash over and over like a record player with a video on it instead of sound on it. cuz there is no sound in the memory that we got. not yet at least. we don’t usually have any shared sound for anything anyway. it gets lost or taken away someplace inside. and it feels like the brain is trying to make us do something with this stupid memory with the dad man and it is all terrible and yucky and horrible and we’re making a big deal over it and need to stop talking about it. but we are bad and can’t cuz we got to say something even if we’re still too scared to write it and some inside keeping us from writing it here. we almost falling asleep cuz they been trying to make us sleep and not tell and we be fighting them but we don’t wanna make them mad by telling now. and the bigs wrote a post about Noah and stuff that not posted yet cuz they wanted to think of a good title but i don’t think they are going to do that very good in thinking of one. i think they are going to have to give a dumb title like i’m going to give this post a dumb title.

and some inside keep screaming and saying no can write until we tell our love story and stuff and so we need to sit and write that but it gets all big and huge of a story cuz there is so much to tell and so then some say just write it in little bits with part 1, 2, 3 or something like that but then others say no, only can do that if we write it all at once or close to all at once and separate the posts so that people might read it instead of it being one huge long post versus 3 small medium posts. and well the talking and debating and opinions go on and on. that’s only some of them. and that’s how it be for so many things. and i’m tired.

and we can’t stop thinking and remembering and flashing on that memory and we try to keep pushing it away or distracting or blanking the mind or something but something else keeps tugging and making us go look at it and it is just so scary to look at and to feel anything about it. i think someone is trying to get us to feel and process it or whatever that stuff is called cuz they are trying to do something therapy or something on it with us and i can tell. just something i can feel and remember the same feeling before when we get a bad memory and it all upsetting and hard to believe and hard to remember and want to throw up and all those things that happen.

and the mother lady teld told Julie about the father man and stuff and she learned about bad mean and kinda evil stuff he do to the mom and it make it even more real to the ones inside who don’t like to believe the dad man did things to us and when we learned about that other stuff it ain’t that hard to stretch it that he would be a bad dad man who would hurt his daughter bad and icky ways. so the ones who have hard time believing bad stuff about the dad man are thinking maybe it is more true than they did before cuz of what the mother lady told and we know it is true cuz we just know she telling it pretty much or like it was. well the stuff she said anyway. there’s stuff unsaid about growing up with her and the family and stuff but stuff between her and the father man is true we think and not much missing. at least not for the stuff she said. the times she was telling us about.

so we got to go and sleep or something to get energy to do stuff and fight the ones who put us to sleep cuz i don’t know why they do it. to help i guess. and maybe we just make it up that there are ones inside who put us to sleep and it just something that automatically happens and it is easier to think we are fighting people inside doing it to us instead of some physical or other crazy unknown psychological reason that we can’t even fight. it still feels like we’re fighting something that gots peoples behind it. at least some of it. maybe not all of the reasons.

some us, some others, and some other others kinda sorta, hard to say who all here