splat.

Tomorrow should have been my brother's 29th birthday. I'm kind of prepared for it to not exactly be the best day I've ever had. Not that knowing makes it any easier. I can't not think that I should have booked a room in NY so we can go to a Yankees game. Or how much he'd love all of the crap going on for the Civil War sesquicentennial, all around me. I have those thoughts that I need to do something or tell him something, and then I catch myself, and then bye bye composure. I cannot begin to tell you how much I am not looking forward to Christmas this year.

I planned to head to Pittsburgh this past weekend and hit a wall. Metaphorically, luckily, though my car is still acting up. I've been skating up against my limits and hit them, dead on. I'm kind of burned out. And it sucks. And I feel horrendously guilty. And.. I think what also bugs about it is how many people told me/ keep telling me to stay strong for my parents. Which is great and all, but who's staying strong for me? They have each other at least, while I'm hundreds of miles away from them and any real friends (yes, there's a handful of friendly type people and a guy or two I've seen/ am nominally seeing, but it's not the same). And I've put just about two thousand miles on my car in the past month. So, yes, I'm trying to be the good daughter and help to ease my parents' burden, but.. at what point do I get to share or even put down my own burden for a while?

I may come across as a little bitter, but to be honest? I'm not sure how concerned about that I am at the moment. I think it's just one too many tone deaf individuals that seem to expect me to magically be Over It By Now. Like, because the loss of a sibling is lesser than the loss of a child, parent, or spouse, I should be more okay. I especially liked the one person who, in response to my description of my day as "rough," empathized with a "rough" day that involved taking a car to a garage. Yep. Dealing with a mechanic is totally on the same level as dealing with the loss of two very close family members. Of course. This is kind of why I find FatCat to be far more effective at providing comfort than 99.9% of supposedly sentient, self-aware humans.