Days 85 & 86, Be Brave Project; Straight to the Crazy

Sometimes, drinking seems like a completely logical response.

Not now, not now that I've seen the damage it's done and could till do me. Not when I remind myself that my liver enzymes were all over the place and how swollen my gut was. . .but I quite clearly see why the hell drinking often seemed such an utter relief and necessity.

It was, to paraphrase Jane Austen entirely out of context, the natural response to an unnatural situation. At times my entire family seems to be wired differently to the dictates of self-benefit, logic, kindness and reason. I could give many sweeping statements on how that operates, how they demand success but only encourage failure, believe--to a man--that they are absolute shit and yet the complete center of the universe, but instead I will give this example of the weirdness that makes me head straight to the crazy.

Two days ago I received an email from my cousin informing me that my father's 95 year old uncle was dying. I only met the uncle a few times, as he lives in Texas. But I thought that I should check in with my father, just to say I heard what's going on and hope he's doing ok.

Seems pretty logical, right? Rather normal human behavior, I thought.

I went on with my day.

Yesterday I received an email in response--the email was written to me alone, but sent to the entire family, and also forwarded my previous email (a breech of modern etiquette). The letter was long, with much in praise of the great uncle, and very formally written as if it were a speech. And it concluded with the nugget of information that my father and aunt were welcome at the funeral, but none of the rest of us were.

Then I hear that my father is furious at my aunt for telling her daughter about this imminent death in the family. And the aunt is furious at her daughter for telling me. Apparently these things are classified and information that will only be released months--if not years--after the event. My three sentence email to my father was viewed as forcing his hand, making him tell people of this death, and being the result of an egregious blabbing of information that had nothing to do with us.

See what I mean about the crazy? It would take beaucoup vodka to make logic of this thinking, this control freakery and emotional disconnection. No wonder I behave like an overgrown adolescent--my generation of cousins are bankers, businessmen, graduate students, high-level federal employees, analysts, parents and tax-payers: But we should not be informed of major family events or, if a serious breech of security has occurred, we should never discuss the information amongst ourselves.

Sober, I cannot wrap my mind around this. I also cannot laugh at it, apart from that bitter sort of barking laugh. I trust I'll find this funny later. It makes me think of that Marguerite Duras quote, where she said she would be perfectly happy living alone on an island provided she had enough booze. I do not understand any of it, the hostility and the blame, the defensiveness and the rigidity. I just want to be on an island, away from it.

And I am so sick of trying to figure it out. I need to find another response to the crazy, apart from obsessing or capitulating or drinking--I need to remove myself in some way.