Big decision

 I am going to see my brother.  It will probably be next week or in a few weeks after vacation.  I'm not sure where and how it will work out but I decided I needed to do it.  The reason seems so simple but it has been a very hard decision.

Last week Dr. Mind told me "he's still your brother".  I came home and did a lot of crying and a lot of writing about who my brother is and how this person is not my brother.  But it did make me realize that he is still a person, just one who made terrible mistakes and I need to see him as a person.  And then I realized that it is entirely possible that he'll be in prison by the time I can get around well.  I don't know if I can go to prison to visit or not and I don't want to leave myself wondering about what he is like and what I should think or feel about him (or even if he is really a person; in my mind he had become a monster, and as Dr. Mind told me, monsters are green with scary eyes).  I do not want to be left with regrets through his entire prison term or questions about how I should see him.  He did awful things if what is alleged is real.  But one of the things I've noticed myself struggling with is that like it or not he IS part of my past.  Soon after he was arrested I took down 2 pictures of him that my mom had hanging on the wall outside the room I was staying in at her house because it was too upsetting to leave them there.  But even then I had trouble.  I kept wanting to go through all of the thousands of photos I've taken on family occasions and isolate the ones of him to a "Steven" file.  But that didn't work because that did not change that he was there on those occasions and the "Steve" file would still exist. 

So my mom is to work out a time to see him, somewhere neutral.  The rules are that he is not to touch me and is not to call me by the nickname he has used as long as I can remember.  And Dr. Brain was very careful to insist that wherever we meet that I have an out if I need one.  If I walk into the room and can't do it that's the way it is.  If I manage a few minutes and that's it, that's the way it is.  The goal is not to traumatize myself but to do what I need to do.

It feels weird.  But it would feel a lot weirder if he is plea bargained while I'm not able to get around this summer and my last interaction with him in person would be yelling at each other. 

And I truly need to see that he is human.  It has been so much easier to see all child offenders as monsters because my grandfather was one.  And that makes it hard to believe that my brother isn't just like my grandfather.  My grandfather though was a sadist.  I don't know if my brother has that kind of trait but I don't have anything that says he does.  And that's important.

I never thought that this would be something I could grow accustomed to.  But I have and while whenever the next step comes new things will come up right now I know pretty much where things stand and that this is how it will be until the indictment.  The lawyer says 3-9 months for that usually and it has only bee one month and 5 days.  It seems impossible that it has been such a short time but it has.  So it is probably still a while off.

So, big step is coming sometime.  I'm really kind of busy right now which makes this harder but when I get back from vacation I'll have 2 weeks before surgery. 

I've got to get to bed.  My nieces are here visiting and I want to enjoy every second I can with them before I will be unable to play very easily.