I hate being so dramatic, but for the first time, in a very long time, I feel numb. I find my self staring off into space, zoning out without any thought at all. I just need time.

Hey World. It's been a while.

So much has changed in the past few months. I do not feel like I am me anymore. It is three fourths good and one fourth bad.

And right now, it is going to be about the bad. I feel like I just had my heart ripped right out of my chest. You know when you were little and you had this fancy, romanticized idea of what a family should be? I still had that, up until today. I have known it for a while, but it hit me like a ton of bricks today. I have not talked about it to anyone and nor do I plan to, that is why I am using this medium to vent. I do believe that not many people read this, but that is ok. I write this for me now.

My grandmother has alzheimer's. I first noticed it at my younger cousin's graduation party in 2006, she handed me twenty dollars and told me to put it towards my college fund. As much as I appreciate the extra funds, in that moment, she thought I was thirteen or fourteen years old, when in fact I was twenty.  There have been plenty of small moments where I have noticed it, but the big moments are the ones that hurt the most. This disease is a horrible, horrible thing and it robs them of their memories and takes away a part of them that you never thought would go away.  It hurts their loved ones because they can remember, but those affected cannot.

Let me start with a little back story. My grandma is one of those grandma's who always looks her best. She is prim, proper and eloguent. Her hair is always in the right place, she is always wearing the latest fashions (for grandmother's of course), her house is always neat and tidy and above else, she is always smiling. This was the grandma I knew growing up. She was sassy, she was smart and she loved you for you.  She always had a witty comeback or a snide remark. No matter what she said, you were laughing your butt off in the end. One of her favorite phrases (it was even stitched on a pillow) was "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." It was the only time I ever heard her curse.

For the longest time I have had a very romanticized notion of what my family was.  Of course we had our share of differences, as well as a drug addict uncle who broke up the family. Or that is what I thought.  Yes, of course that did play a huge part into the family's falling out, but it is not the only reason. Today (and in no way, shape or form do I want to blame my parents at all for what I am about to say), I found out that our family was not a real family. They do not care about us anymore. It is almost like a game to see who can go with out contact the longest. I will give it to my aunt, who was married into the family, who tried to involve us to a certain point, but that is about it.  My own father's sister did not even invite us to her son's graduation which was literally forty minutes away from our house...not to mention we did not even know about it. They just do not care.

I feel sorry for them. Sorry that they do not know what real love is, sorry that they never had the relationship I have with my parents. I mean, the only contact my dad gets from his dad is pictures of boobies. His mother doesn't remember him anymore and both of his siblings have abandoned him. And yet, look at my dad. The one good thing that came out of all of this is my father. He is an amazing, wonderful man with the kind of faith, love and support that can move mountains. It hurts my heart that he has had to go through this his whole life and I have only found out about it recently. I give him so much credit for keeping his parents in the good light when he could have casted them aside and just forgot about them. He gave them chance after chance after chance and he will continue to. He will not turn his back on them the way they did him.

This should teach me a lesson, this should show me the way, but I cannot help but close out my heart at this time. The very woman that was holding our family together during all those years (or so I like to think was) is falling apart before our eyes. My grandfather never wanted to be a father, let alone a grandfather, but he did it for her. He smiled his way through all the hugs and kisses; the birthday's and Christmas's. My Uncle is referred to in the family now as "the sperm donor" and my Dad's big sister has a stick so far shoved up her butt that not even the jaws of life could get it out. I had always known this, but they were family and I wanted to think the best of them. I wanted to keep all those memories I have from growing up in a far better world than I could ever imagine, untainted. My mom says to hold those memories dear to me and to not let those go. I want to, I really, really want to, but I am so hurt right now. My heart is broken.

So, now here the question lies, when I go home, do I go visit? In a perfect world, I would turn the other cheek and smile and nod through all of the conversations and listen to everyone talk about the good ol' days. I have been praying for hours, trying to figure out what to do. I do not feel a sense of obligation anymore, but they are family. I am humbled by my father and the way he chooses to deal with this, but I am not him.  I have more recent wounds. It does not matter to my grandfather if I come to visit him either way and my grandma does not know who I am anymore. Is it worth breaking my heart again? If I go, I feel as though I will just be hurting myself even more. As everyone who is anyone who knows me, I over think things, I wear my heart on my sleeve and I take things personally. It is just who I am.  But, if I do not go, what will that do to me?

I have seen the positive portions to all of these things, being of who my father turned out to be against everything that he had gone through and the graciousness I feel that I have been so fortunate to grow up in the world I did. Trust me, I can see the good things in this, but right now, I hurt. My grandparents were not who I thought they were growing up. I feel betrayed and lied to. Like everyone put on a face to protect the children. Why be apart of our lives at all? Was it because it was just the "proper" thing to do? I know they grew up in a world of money, power and social standings, but who are these people that love us just to put on a face? Did they ever care at all?

silly me.

Ever do something and immediately regret it?  Well, guess what just happened.  Yesterday at work, I had to chance to re-read my inspiration for my new body of work "Other People’s Love Letters: 150 Letters You Were Never Meant to See"  by Bill Shapiro. Questioning the aspect of what happens when ones priviate thoughts become public.  A chance to immerse yourself into other peoples lives. Not just their lives, but their very intimate thoughts and feelings. I have always thought that the hand written word was a gesture of unremarkable intimacy and romance. Re-reading these letters gave me a chance to relive my past relationships and the way they sparked through letter writing.  I was deeply moved by all of the letters, yet again. Then I came across this one that I do not recall reading. Or, I read it but it did not stick until now because I was unable to relate to it.

It was a letter written five years after they met. This man, who was taken at the time, decided to write to this woman, who was not the one he was taken with.  I do not know if I am going to be able to do this letter any justice, but the fact of the matter is that out of the blue, he decided that he was to write this woman, whom he had (or so it seemed) not spoken to in five years. He decided to put it all out there and tell her that even though he was with someone else, there was a spark between them and he knew at that moment that she was worth more of his time than the woman he was with.  Yes, this seems sad for the other woman, but in time, they both went their seperate ways, but the thing that bothered him most was the fact that there was this girl who he knew almost nothing about, but five years later was still thinking about.

She wrote back. It so happened that she was single and through a mutual friend, their secret of each others attraction to one another was kept.  All this time, they were feeling the same way about each other, but never said anything until now. Who knows where they are now...maybe they have had multiple children and are happily married on the countryside of some villa.  What I do know and what the story did for me, was let me face another truth of mine. 

So, what did I do, but what I do best. I pulled out my pen and paper and I wrote a letter. A letter in which I will not discuss details, but it recalls a moment in my life in which I have always questioned.  I wrote it as concisely as I could but I feel as though I may have romantisized it a bit. I tend to make more of a sitiuation than it is called for, but I guess that is what most girls do anyways.  After writing the letter, I looked for the address. I actually found it, but silly me, I e-mailed the person to make sure it was the right address and then immediately regreted doing so. With that simple action, I made it more real than what I wanted it to be.  This caused me to think about what I actually did.

Silly me, I wrote a letter to a person who probably does not even remember the event in which I wrote about. All based on what? A silly letter that I read from a book about two other people in which it may or may not have worked out? Then, I realized how crazy it all sounded. Should I countinue to hope that this person disregards my question of an actual address so that I do not have to send it? What if this person does send it back saying yes...this is my address? Must I still send it? I should not have written it in the first place...or if I did, I should not have put it in an envelope, sealed it and put a stamp on it. What am I thinking? These types of things do not happen in real life, not to me at least.

I feel sick to my stomach. How can something like this have such an impact on my life and why must I think of it so often? I feel crazy. Please make it stop.


stay tuned, you know I never stay in one place for long.

AC out.