When you open your eyes...

...it might already be too late.

I think I finally understand a couple of things, among them why it's so much easier to be closed off than open. In the last few months I finally became who I wanted to be, finally could open up to love someone and be loved in return. But now, an old war starts up again and I can't say with any certainty if I'll survive it with this open heart and empty hands.

My family is killing me. I did my own fair share of damage to my life throughout the years, but now I'm at a place I want to be. Or at least I was until this past weekend, when they decided to start it all over again. 3 months of sobriety and she knew she loved you; any doubt she'd had in the last few years had all but vanished. But you had to pick up the bottle again, didn't you? It might be liquid you drink, but it's bricks you throw at us. I can only stand in front of her for so long before you take me down too.

But that's what family is, they are there for you whenever you need. And if it means suicide in the sense that I knowingly head towards my demise by trying to help them, then so be it. Bad knee and all, I'll stand ready to protect her and anyone else who might fall victim to that bottle in your hand.

I realized something very surreal last night. I thought to myself, "How come I can put it down but he can't? Am I really that much stronger than he is?" And while he has issues that I can only imagine or find in my nightmares, I'm not without my own. Which means that something I always struggled for, something I wanted all my life has actually come to pass. It's the fact that I said I wanted to be as compassionate as my mother and as strong as my father. If in fact I'm able to put down that bottle when it hurts those around me, then I am exactly that. Stronger than my father. You know, it's not as gratifying as I thought it would be.

Reassessing the situation, I'm not sure now if it's either of those two things, what I wanted or needed. I can't figure it out. I know that I wanted to be that rock that he can be for everyone as well as the water that crashes upon him like she is. But now I see how much easier it is to get through these things when I'm nothing but a stone wall and a void of emotion. Do I give up what I've become to spare her? I think I already answered that question in this post.

So this is me...

...walking away from what I wanted for so long, in the worst sense of the word. This is me closing myself off from any and everything that could ever care about me, all for the love of family, to be that rock protecting my mother and the water crashing against my father, the golem they need to keep things together or to help ease into this transition. Whatever they need, that's what I'll be. Because that's what a son who loves his family , regardless of faults and flaws, does for his parents.