vet/art project piece {from the little big sister}

so, the vet art project had a 2nd performance of our work this memorial day and at 9am the morning of the performance, i finally got around to re-writing the piece i had written for the first set of performances. i didn't post it back then because it wasn't quite right. it didn't sit well or ring authentic. but this one is closer. close enough, so here it is for you, and for ross:

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i am so tired. running on a few nights of not enough sleep but maybe it will help put me in a place to finally write this. to write to you and about you and this goddamn mess that we really don’t know how to talk about. because the distance and silence between us isn’t even the real issue – it’s just the symptom of a much bigger problem which is this murky, viscous layer resting so far below the surface i can’t find a stick long enough to even poke at it.
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and the strange thing is, me, the communicator and processor of feelings into thoughts, thoughts into words, and words into growth and healing and understanding – well, that part of me somehow won’t shine a light on this problem. won’t give voice to what i’ve buried underneath a solid weight of guilt and shame and betrayal. so contrary to my usual MO, no one knows the full story of us or even just some small sliver of the significant parts – just you and me and we can’t even talk any more.
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so here we are. big little brother, little big sister trying our best to fumble back to where we were, when we both knew all the best and worst things about each other and loved both sides and everything in between. when we talked every single day. when we had a sense of who the other was, where they were and what they were feeling almost all the time. sure, we have had silences before, like during your three week pre-deployment training in the Mojave desert and then again during those long months of both tours. but that was the silence of physical space, of the inability of technology to connect us as often as we would like – not like this, now that you’re back with a cell phone and internet and there is no reason beyond the fact that we. choose. not. to.
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so here we are. silent. you: trying, sort of. me: disapproving, a lot. god, i hate that i am so disapproving but i can’t get out of the pattern. it’s not like this disapproval is new to our friendship. not like i didn’t put up a fuss when you first joined the military straight out of high school. not like i didn’t cautiously eye your first fiancée who we all knew wouldn’t stay loyal to you long enough for you to even complete boot camp and marry her. but somehow, those earlier times, i always found my way back to peace about it. i felt connected to the respect and love i had for you and that carried us on. brought us back. kept us alive.
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so here i am. stiff and sore and scared. worried i’m wrong about your marriage that began way too fast. {three weeks? that’s seriously enough time to judge?} worried even more that i’m right about it, that you’ll regret settling for the first girl in two and a half years that you met that wasn’t married to or dating one of your buddies. worried that your plans for life have changed too drastically {is she really worth trading in UC Berkeley for UW? and are you even going to college once they straighten out your disability and finally let you leave? and wait, didn’t you join the military is large part because of the money they’d give you for school on the other side???}
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i’m worried about you and your finances. you who is now the very proud owner of a lexus, 7 snakes that cost what? grand a piece? putting money down on a guide dog you don’t NEED and can’t afford just because a white german shepard is cool and your brain tumor that snuck up on us all last year took out a little of your peripheral vision. oh, and you’re about to enter into a mortgage you can’t afford unless you have three housemates and some loan from the VA which you haven’t even researched properly and still, you just keep on spending.
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and i know i’m being critical. i am being nosey and bossy and i know i’m being a little colder to you, and a lot more distant in those subtle ways of body language and tone. i know that i’m stuck on my firm belief that you want to have a concealed weapon for the wrong reasons and that NO good will come out of an aspiring warrior and trained killer, disappointed in the lack of bloody glory that the Marines and two tours had promised you carrying around a gun all the time. i feel certain you will make a rash decision out of a misguided effort to be a hero because when will you really need a gun? you aren’t a drug dealer and you don’t even do drugs. no gangs or crime to speak of. a 6’ 4” broad and hulking presence that will deter any mugger. so tell me why do you really think you’ll need a gun, and more importantly what are you secretly longing to prove?
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because i know you know too much and not enough about death. you know that brain matter and blood smell like wet dog when stuck to your clothes. you know the sound of impact a head has on a windshield, when, just after returning from another uneventful tour, a drunk pedestrian stepped in front of your car in the dark and poorly lit road you happened to be driving on. the police officer commended your stopping distance. you did the best you could but that still didn’t stop you from punching the pavement in desperation and agony just moments after it happened. so, even though you haven’t yet begun to process what happened, i know you know too much about the guilt and grief that accompanies accidental death.

but what do you really know about deliberate death? the death you choose for someone else by tightening the grip of your finger and firing a weapon. sure, the military trained you for accuracy. and one can argue they trained you for killing. but what did they train you about the other side of the dead body? nothing. and that’s what you know about it. nothing. and i want you to leave this world knowing nothing about it. so look me in the eye and tell me you literally want to carry a loaded weapon around?
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obviously we argue a lot about this one. that is, when we are present enough to have a real conversation. like in the car a month ago when you drove me from coachella back to LA. two and a half hours without your wife and we finally started to come back together again for the first time in a long time. but even so, i find myself too heavy and sorry, too acclimatized to the safety of distance to even broach the topics and ask the questions i really want to ask. are you happy? do you still like her as much as you did a year ago? in this distance and silence between us have you kept your promises and the many secrets of mine that you carry? are the parts of me i shared with you still just between us, despite the changing priorities and loyalties? because i want to remember what it’s feels like to trust you. i need to be reassured you are really still there, underneath all the small talk we have when she’s around. and that you’ll wait for me to get back to a place i can be proud of. where i can accept you and your decisions no matter how I feel about them.
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because i owe you that. i owe you that at the very least and really so much more. you, the little brother, five years my junior, who rose to the occasion to take care of me in one of the darkest moments of heart break in my life. and not just every day care, or even i’ll be there in tough times for you care, but above and beyond, fly me down to california tomorrow, take me to the beach and lay me out in the sun sort of care. and it was exactly what i needed and you were the only one who knew what to do. so you did. just like that. and, really that’s not even the whole of it, that’s barely even the beginning. all the conversations and support. all the little things that add up and the not so little things that stand out. like that $400 pit ticket you bought me so i could see radiohead up close one more time in their 2008 tour. you did that too. what a fucking amazing early birthday gift you gave me just a few days shy of your second departure to iraq. you called me from germany when i was at the getty museum later that weekend and i told you not only had the concert rocked but the adventure had been out of this world. like getting into the after party. with the band. because of you.
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so where are we now? and why can’t i loosen my grip on what i think your life should look like? take away expectations, and do you the return favor of supporting your crazy, adventurous whims like you have for me in the past. contribute a couple hundred to your dog, take you two out to dinner when you can’t afford it yourselves. lavish on you the love and support you’ve given me for years.
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but somehow that’s hard. hard to admit i’ve been wrong. that despite the fact i’m the older sister, the analyzer of people, the articulator of emotional minutia, the little big sister of big thoughts and big words who should have all the answers but just doesn’t this time. all i have is me, this entire package of frustration and judgment and fierce protectiveness and desire for you to have as wonderful of a life as i picture for myself. and I’m sorry that’s gotten in the way of things, but i also know that it will bring us back together again. because in the end, i know i’m your big hearted little sister and all the rest is just static on the line.
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