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More Family Stuff before/after So, my brother is back from Ireland, and visiting for a few days. I gave up my room, and moved into the guestroom. Mother asked me to do so, using the rationale that my room had a bigger bed for my brother and his fiance'. Not sure what to think or feel about that. I suspect motivations that are not readily apparent to somone as close to everything as I. And I gave my brother a shirt of mine to wear. He made noise about being too hot at night, and I've given him my fan. (my fan!) No, wait, for some reason, he just gave it back. Likely because we just got into a tiff an hour ago and he's being a marvelous prick. As for the tiff, I was teasing him about liking Menuedo when he was younger, and he blew up. He started shouting at me, and declaring that I "make things up", which is an allusion to the times I've tried to get him to recognize some of the things that he did to me while we were growing up. Things that other people recognize and remember. Specific and detailed instances I recall, which he decalres "didn't happen". That's the most grinding part of it all. Don't tell me what I know and don't know. I have nothing to gain by embracing this pain other than to let it go. He got verbally abusive and insulting. (I feel as though I am attracting verbal abuse by my passiveness of late. Perhaps I should be as petty and insulting pre-emptively when I feel it coming. ) And I ended it by shouting back at him, "Don't shout at me!" blah, blah, blah And saying in a normal tone:"You've got issues that have nothing to do with me." blah, blah, blah And finally,"Get up in my face again, and you get what you get." Creative, I know. He left in a huff. Sorry, dude, guess I forgot to placate your ego. Perhaps you should rest it somewhere else. Anyway, the 'rents came to me with the typical "can't we all just get along b.s." and I told them I would. And I told my mom that I moved to Denver, and tried to make it work for two years with no success. I altered my life. To no avail, I suppose. We were doing well when I left. I imagine he's backslid and spoiled some. Indulgence breeds entitlement minded-ness. In other terms--his fiance perpetually, ah...indulges him, let's say, and he expects everyone to...ah, let's say, indulge him. The end result is that I learned one of the maxims of relationships in life: there really isn't anything you can do to make things better if you're the only one working at it. At the same time, you cannot expect to change someone, or make them grow if they do not desire to do so. (same thing restated) The final wisdom is that we can only affect a relationship through the only vessel that we can control, which is ourselves. We can set limits on what we tolerate, and what we do not. We can remove ourselves from situations we cannot tolerate. And we can control the amount of attention we give any given situation. Other than that, one must realize what we are hoping to acheive with any given person, and what point there is to holding on to negative emotions. Happiness is found intrinsically. Sometimes all you can do is limit the negativity and negative exposure. You know what I'm sayin' 'G'? YOU KNOW! What you SAYEEE! Can I get an AMEN! CAN. I. GET. an A.-MEN! Hallelujah. Can I get a Hallelujah? Anyone? ...Anyone? Bueller?
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