Ever since I started blogging about 3 years ago most of my thoughts have turned into narratives and for some reason I can almost never get them typed as awesome as they sound in my head. This morning was one of those times when my thoughts were flowing so well that I went and unhooked my computer from my entertainment center and went into my room and made an effort to get my thoughts recorded. So far I have been sitting here unable to summon them back to me. shucks.

I’m sick right now, sick of phlegm that is. I have a cough and I keep blowing nasty stuff outta my nose. What is it that compels us to look at our snot after we blow our noses? I’m not sure but my snot made me think about how I used to watch You Can’t Do That on Television, it was a show on Nickelodeon and they used to “slime” people. Alanis Morrisette was on it, before she was on MTV. I loved that show.

I woke up this morning because I heard Ellie making noise and when I hear her in there awake I can’t leave her in there, I have to go rescue her. Most mornings I walk in and Kendel has a pillow wrapped around her head, sadly this reminds me of myself because I used to do the same thing.

When I was in high school I was the only person in my house that had a job and it was about a mile and a half down the road from our apartment complex. I took the city bus to work and my normal shift was 4pm-10pm but sometimes I didn’t get out till 10:30 or 11. The city busses shut down at 10pm so I would walk home, with my back to traffic because I didn’t want anyone I went to school with seeing me walk home. This was just about the dumbest thing ever but I was so concerned with what everyone thought that I would choose not being embarrassed over safety.

Anyways this is a long road to get to my point which is that after getting home late from a day of going to school AND working, I would wake up at 5 or 6am because my mom had put my brother’s crib in my room while I was sleeping and he had woken up hungry/pissy and was screaming his brains out. I remember his little face, all red and a mess with tears, staring straight at me when I opened my eyes and I remember wrapping my pillow around my head, rolling over in bed and trying to go back to sleep. I can’t tell you how much this memory bothers me.

It wasn’t just a one time thing either, if I woke up and he wasn’t in my room it was because I had woke up before he did to pee or something and I pushed him across the hall into Katie and Kendel’s room. If they woke up and he was crying they would push him back into my room, it’s just what we did. We weren’t his mother, we were his sisters.

My mom always left him home with us, and one time I was so upset because I wanted to go somewhere so I yelled at her “He’s not my baby!”, she answered me with a smack in the face and she walked out the front door.

Most of the things I say about my mom are the sugared version believe it or not, my mom was a selfish bitch and did things to me that even I can barely believe. So during this time I never got to actually just love and enjoy my brother. I mean, I did love him and I did have fun with him but for the first few hours of ruined plans I was just straight up pissed off. Taking care of a baby takes SO MUCH out of a person. I have felt like a mother so many times and I have never even been pregnant.

When some of my friends had babies they would say little things to me about being good with kids or whatever like they were so surprised I knew anything about anything but no matter how many times I told them that I practically raised a few kids of my own they never “got it”. I don’t tell stories to make people feel bad for me and I don’t tell stories that are untrue. I tell stories so people will understand me and so many times I have felt like people thought I was lying about things or stretching the truth a bit. If anything I shrink the truth. It just used to really upset me when I felt like people didn’t believe me.

You know when someone tells a story, and you think to yourself “sure that’s what happened”? That’s what I have felt so many times when I tell people things. Like no one could honestly believe that since I was 8 I was being left home alone with my 4 year old sister and then when I was 9 it was a 5 year old sister and a baby. I was 9 years old and taking care of a BABY!

My mom was mentally and physically abusive to me. She called me a selfish asshole my whole life and you know what? I started to believe her. I actually thought I WAS selfish. How selfish of me to steal quarters from my friends so I could do laundry for myself, how selfish of me to not want Katie wearing my clothes, how selfish of me to not want to stay home all the time and take care of kids. I never wanted kids because of her, I asked her if I could have a hysterectomy when I was 14. I was serious as hell.

I really kinda got going there, but the whole reason I brought up the thing with my brother is because once again I am taking care of a baby that isn’t mine but this time I am not wrapping the pillow around my head. Yes it is very, very, VERY!, much of a burden on me. I have so much guilt about ignoring my crying brother that in some totally fucked up way I feel like every time I make Ellie smile I am making it up to Joey. For whatever reason this helps me deal.

I know I probably wouldn’t feel so much guilt about Joey if he hadn’t of died so young and I had had more chances to make him smile but I feel like he was stolen from me, the time I would have chose to spend with him was stole from me and I just can’t get the time I was forced to be with him out of my mind. I always took great care of my brother during the day but it’s just those fucking mornings when I was exhausted and I ignored him, those mornings are one of my biggest regrets. I wish I would have got up, changed him and made him smile.

So with Ellie I go the extra mile. I am trying very hard to not spoil her but it is so hard for me to hear her cry. Sometimes she won’t go down for her nap and I have to leave her in the room to cry herself to sleep and it just makes me so sad. It’s just so crazy though how things can get all mixed up in your head. I know that she is okay, that she is crying because she is tired, but deep in my chest I just feel pain. It’s hard to explain and I don’t think I could even with 10 more paragraphs but every time Ellie cries I get mad at my mom and I wish I would have had the balls to punch her in the face when I was 17.