... I'll still keep talking. And if I haven't done so yet, just get used to it. I DO talk in my sleep. So, if you read this in the morning, grab a cuppa. You may be here for a while. (Or not. I'm still typing, so there's no telling as to what I may, or may not, say.)

And I’ve just realized … I’m NOT just talking. You may be listening. To me, that is out of the norm. And? Not only is it needed? It is WANTED. So … thank you. Thank YOU … for listening.

But right now? I think I may just need to talk. To babble. And if YOU listen? So much the better.

So, if YOU are actually listening? That is fantastic. And? I am not trying to call you out. But I DO realize that maybe, just *maybe*, my personal experience may help someone else. And? As much as I DO adore you ... as much as I realize that our fireflies like to twirl about each other at least, in this instance? There might be something greater than us. Even though I am telling you my story, I have to realize that "my" story is also someone else's. Someone else's story who can't quite find their own words. So? My words will have to serve as proxy, at least for now. Until *they* can find their own voice. Once again, we seem to have delved deep.

And this time, the delving, it was due to my family, and their living with me ... so ... again. I apologize. I am going to respond to you both publicly, and privately. And? Even though I DO put these words out to the public? I hope that you do realize that they are aimed at you, and NOT at you. And that you, above all people, have the ability to not just ask me, but also *feel* my answers. And that maybe my personal answers to you, will also speak to the universal. And, really? If you can't understand this, *THIS*, I cannot deal with you. As much as I adore you, there are times that, even though a personal answer may want to remain just that - personal - there are times I may just have to put it out there. To share me, with everyone else. Really, it is NOTHING to do with you, but more? To do with me. So ...  

I have this feeling that, even though you ARE okay with certain parts of life being put on display for public consumption, there are parts that you wish to remain private. And that? I am truly, and deeply, okay with. But the following? It is all ME. And regarding that? This is me, putting ME, out on display. So ... "us"? It is still private. (C'mon, each one of us deserves to have fireflies, no?)

Maybe a bit of background, which I have probably told you before, may shed some light. (Okay, so, yes. I HAVE been married before. But, even though I was married, he didn't seem to "get" it. Which is why my house is in the current state that it is in. No, it’s not my fault. No. NO! Really! Okay, maybe it IS my fault. I DO own much of that, but, really? That is a story, or an explanation, for another time. To be spoken of privately.) Anyway.

So? Here goes ... (I have probably told you much of this, but in the below I am trying to frame my current state of mind.) And if I repeat what I have already said before? Just suck it up and read it as background. Background of me. And Dad. And some family members.)

Anyway, the phone was ringing … I was sleeping in my grandparents bed, and then?

"Bring, bring, BRING! I love you. I am sorry."

Until February 20, 1982, our lives were the normal (dysfunctional), and a typical American family. February 21st? That changed. It ALL changed. We were no longer "normal" ... we were less. My grandparents were less a child. My other grandparents were less an in-law. My uncle(s) were less a sister. My father was less a wife. And I? I was less a mother. (But this story? It's not so much about me, but about me as a passenger.)

Ga, and Popa, they lost a child. My Uncles? They lost a sister. Nana and Popi? They lost a daughter that brought their son back to them, from Vietnam. Dad? He lost not only a partner, but also the mother of his child. And he also lost, and found, himself. And his child? Lost her mother. Granted, it was a mother she never knew, but a mother none-the-less.

After Mom died, and until the day he did, Dad and I cleaved to each other. Not just because we loved each other, but also because we were twined in the loss of Mom. Of Partner. Of "Love".

I cannot speak for him, but only for myself, after her loss; I clung to my uncle, her younger brother. Of all of the geographically close family members, HE was the only one that saw me, for, well ... me. For many, MANY, years he accepted me as a little sister. And I? I saw him as an older brother. He, honestly, was the one that set me on the unholy path that forced me to love bad hair metal. (For that I both love and curse him.)

C'mon - in the Still of the Night, how can you NOT love A Rainbow in the Dark? Oh my god, yes!

When both Ga and Popa would compare me to a ghost (for those of you not following along, the ghost is my mother), I would hide in a tree. Literally. I held a book between my teeth and climbed the front-yard tree. And stay up there until I was threatened. Did they mean it (comparing me to a ghost) in that way? Honestly, I don't think so. I think they were just hurt. (God, I hope they didn’t mean it. Even though they DID compare me to Mom. I guess this is what they call Cognitive Dissonance, right?)

 I think they were just broken. (I *canNOT* imagine losing a child. And I do not blame them for their defense-mechanisms. However ... I was –and am – a living, breathing, and feeling, person. Who had to try to live up to those self-same views, even if those views didn’t quite fit right. Even when I DID try to wear that skin that wasn’t my own. http://open.salon.com/blog/annithyme/2009/02/05/late_nightearly_morning_february_ponderings Just to make sure everyone was happy? Granted, I wasn’t their dead child, but I WAS their grandchild. That had to count for something, right?)

When push came to shove, my uncle would talk me down; even if I was scared to let go of that tree limb. And he would forcibly take me down from my tree and toss me in the pool.

And, when he married his high-school girlfriend, and I was their flower girl? And then, just before the separation she beat the shit out of him, and then they divorced, and I helped cared for their child with my Ga? (That same child who no longer remembers me?) And then when he and his 2^nd wife married? And when SHE and I became friends, because we bonded through music and the love/hate of my family, and because she was halfway in age between both my Uncle and I? And when she and I, with the top down on her Camero blasting “Berlin, when she was pregnant with my cousin, went to visit my uncle in jail?

How could I NOT remember that?

How could I say NO when that same uncle asked me for shelter when he was BACK in the pokey?

Really, it was easy. I could have said “no”. But I didn’t. I did not because he was my favourite uncle. He was Mom’s “baby brother”. And I didn’t, just because he NEVER compared me to his dead sister.

However, now? It’s been almost 8 months. When all he asked for was 2 months. And he, and his girlfriend, are more and more deeply ingraining their claws into MY house. The house that my mother and my father worked so hard to buy; the home that they created.

How do I tell this man, this man that saw me for me oh those many years ago, that I want my house, nay, my HOME, back? When this man only sees these four walls as shelter, and not the home that I see those same four walls as? There was a time he really was a time that he was my saviour, and now his standing has lapsed into one of the fallen.

How do I tell him that, even though I DO love him as my blood, that he is no longer welcome in my house? In my home?

How do I tell him that, even though his sister, my MOTHER, would have welcomed him in, that she would have also told him to get off of his high horse and get the fuck out? (I mean, I AM just his niece and all … I don’t have nearly the weight that his dead sister had/has.)

How do I explain to a man who has no sympathy, or empathy, that (even though my house is absolute crap, but that my home is still there, albeit hidden,), that I really do care about it? And that I can’t honestly move forward with recreating and reclaiming it, the way I want to, and the way my dad and his sister would want me to, until he is out?

For the last few months, amongst other things, this is what I have been going through.

I am *this* close to leaving a note on his door. But? I’m not sure I can do that. (Just because he is one of the last ties I do have to Mom. But at the same time I also realize that he ISN’T a healthy tie to Mom … So, I guess I’m in a quandary.

I want to keep those ties. But I want to keep those ties strong and healthy. But I am not sure that is applicable, at least in this case.