emotional weight lifting

I'm not as strong as people think I am. I just fake it really well. Outside I'm calm and in control but inside I'm a Jello salad similar to the ones Mom used to torture us with. I wobble and shake but I can still hold the things that need holding.
I had a snow day yesterday, pretty much everyone in our area did. I won't lie, it was nice. I rambled around in my pjs, watched a couple movies, chatted up an old friend or two on the phone and skype. I did things that had nothing to do with Mom. She was in my head, she's been in my head my whole life. I just didn't focus on her because she's in my waking hours and in my sleep.

I am not ashamed of being weak, I don't know why I hide it. I hide it from Mom because somehow I've become the go-to person for our family. We're not a large family anymore. Just Mom, my brother, my kids, and myself. My kids are grown and off into the world, as it should be but my brother is a stranger now. When we lose Mom I will lose him. We'll talk once a year but the gap is there and he's the one who put it there. If I'm the go-to girl, he's the fall-apart fellow. When something needs doing, I do it. When a doctor needs speaking to, I do it. When there's a crisis, who you gonna call? me. He can't handle it and he's not able to face it. But like the old Smothers brothers routine... Mom loves him best.
It used to bother me badly but now I think I prefer it this way. I've stopped trying to get parental approval that will never come. I am proud of who I am, in spite of the mistakes I've made. In our family tree my brother was the branch they hung the star on but that branch can only hold a thin and fragile star and my branch bears the weight of many objects. My branch is hidden beneath those objects and isn't pretty and straight but his branch breaks easily and is just for looking at. He's the family show pony but I'm the jackass who carries all the burdens. Now there's a mental image to amuse us all.
I'd rather be me than be him. When life gets difficult, and it always does, he quickly buries his head in the sand and pretends things aren't so bad. I don't want to live that way because when you bury your head in the sand to avoid the big issues you miss out on those small happy things that buffer the bad. So I get the doctors, the bad news, and the paperwork and he gets Saturdays and Sundays to be there for an hour and be Mom's hero. I think I'd rather be me, childhood and all.

At the point when my parents neighbor summoned me to Florida, I had risen above my childhood and turned my back on my parents. It took me so many years to forget but I hadn't forgiven. After I got sucked back into the family disfunction I had to face those memories and forgive my parents. I had to accept and understand that I could not change the past, I could only change my own future. My brother, a child raised in the same house as I was, didn't get the same parents I did. His scars were so much lighter and less deep than my own but his are still with him and mine have faded into the past they belong in. You would have thought that the golden child would have grown into an adult with both feet on the ground and I would be a psychological mess but it's the opposite. We're both weak, we both cry, we're both soft in the middle but his is his lifestyle now. I am weak, I do cry, I accept that about myself. I just allow myself that time and move along with my life, he wallows.

Another lady I adore passed away yesterday. When I go up today I'll see the name tag missing from the door and I'll cry. I'll be sad because these elderly people, and the heroes who tend to them, are dear to me and I mourn the loss of each one. I'll have my few moments and not be ashamed and then I'll pull myself together and do what needs doing. I am strong but I am weak, weaker than people think.