It’s 2:31 am and I can’t sleep. Chalk it up to mental turbidity. I tried to find something fun to do online but after fruitlessly searching I came to the epiphany that the internet isn’t as exciting a place as they’d like you to believe. Unless you have a 1 Gig a week bandwidth limit and feel like online gaming, and even gaming gets boring. I have Playstations (one and two) as well as numerous games that are collecting dust in the china-cabinet drawers.

There’s a void, and gnawing that can’t be filled by tv or games or the internet or fun. It’s a need for peace and resolution, two things in drastically short supply this evening. I know that in a few day’s time the waters will settle and the cloudiness of stress and irritation will be cleared, but I want them cleared now. I want there to not be a knot in my stomach. I want to stop feeling guilty for something I intended well but didn’t work out. I want powers of telepathy so I can explain myself without further gross misunderstanding.

If you’re wondering what all the drama is for, I’ve had an online argument with my brother, one in a long and stressful series that doesn’t have an end in site. It wears away at you, and it adds another second of pause before you can actually type out, “I love you.” It’s getting harder, the pause is getting longer.

I’m mad at myself. I allowed myself to become angry and say things in said anger. I would not take any of them back, but I would word them differently. I word take out the word ‘dummy,’ even though I would be thinking it, and I would count to three before returning fire via IM.

I should know, and do know, that it isn’t always what you say to a person so much as it’s how you say it. Being tired this evening, I was undiplomatic and untactful, and not only did I offend my brother, I also offended a complete stranger. Good job Abez. I have tried, in the past, to say things nicely, no matter how un-nice they may actually be, but tonight I failed. I was blunt, and it was a bad idea.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I know my brother will stop sulking in a few weeks. I hope he does anyway. I don’t know if I’ll feel better though. I’ve said things I can’t take back, and now I’m sorry for them. Not words I said to my brother, just some I said to his friend about him. I should have held my tongue. You should never insult your brother to his friends. That’s low-down and dirty. I hang my head in shame. So much so, that I’m ashamed to hang it in front of him. Him, he’s still a dummy, but I had no right to tell his friends as much.

I’m sure I can justify what I told his friend, and so would Owl and Momma and Abbu, because it was meant to be a warning, but what do you do when you’ve raised a false alarm? What do you do when the false alarm is instead seen as slander, and the friend who promised not to tell what you said goes and emails the entire conversation to your brother in under a minute? I feel doubly bad, I feel I’ve been both wrong and wronged. I feel that my trust was betrayed, but I’m sure my brother feels the same way.

Shoot me now.

And this time, use real bullets.

posted by Abez @ 12/29/2004 01:51:00 AM