Tag: brother

Blood Brother

Andy Young1 Comment
Blood family

Blood is thicker than water. I used to believe that. I was a naive 16-year-old saying that. Of course, it doesn’t apply in real life. I grew up and realized that you can have ‘a brother from another mother’. Especially true of O. He’s my best friend, someone I consider more of a brother than anything else. The point of this post is to remind me that I do, in fact, have a brother. The image to the left is on a boat in St Lucia. I can’t remember why we were on a boat, but we were.

We have recently been talking more and more on the phone over the past month or two, and it has been so nice to hear from him. My goodness, he lives a completely messed up life, but he is getting through it.

He has problems with drinks, drugs, and reckless behavior, but I realized, more now than ever, that it’s lonely out here. I think he was lonely too. So the phone calls help. It’s a mutual thing.

Blood family
Blood family

I can’t quite remember what we spoke about, but it was something that only we understood. Complete savagery, but we both knew what we were trying to say. The photo to the right was taken in the Pancake House in North Wales, a special place we used to go to celebrate pretty much anything. Mum was Dutch, and she liked it there. I think she got a kick out of being able to speak Dutch to someone.

And so I end this short post. The people you see to the right are me, dad, mum, and Day. Now, with Mum and Dad being dead, it’s just us two left now. Well, and my whole family here – B, S, and R.

I think it’s such a strange and magical bond that blood brothers and sisters have. I can be away from them for years, then instantly we are back as if it was only minutes apart.

Blood family

So, I don’t actually know what I was setting out to achieve with this post, but I wanted to say that, in conclusion, I’m a little bit happier being in touch with my brother. Even if it won’t last, it was a welcome ear to listen to each other’s problems and try to solve them.

He is a dickhead. But he’s my blood related dickhead. And despite everything that’s gone on, he is my brother. For all his wrongs, he does have some good in him too.

blood brother
Photo by Kuntal Biswas on Pexels.com

Blue Bear

Andy Young1 Comment

The cooling stand that I bought for the beast of a laptop came today. At
least I think it was today, yes, definitely today. I ordered a mouse to go with
it as well which makes a big difference. So it’s all good now, I can play my
games, have more than one tab open and generally not start a fire in the motel
room. That would be bad. The smoke detector has already been taped so I can
vape at ease in here otherwise I would go mad. The cooling stand is pretty cool
(get the JK there) as it has six fans and LEDs in them. So it looks like something
from a hacker movie in the 90s. All about the stereotypes. I’m having fun with
the fan controls. Make it sound like a plane engine or quiet as a whisper.
Since I listen to music all the time here, the plane engine is. Things here at
the motel are still a bit rough and scary at times. Lots of screaming and
shouting from the room to my left; a young girl and her mum don’t seem to get
along very well although that’s just based on the shouting and crying. To my
right I have the drunk who snores, coughs up flem constantly and can hear
stumbling about. Today they (other people) were trying to get into people’s rooms,
obviously drunk, as they used their keys thinking they had this magical power
to open any door- a skeleton key. Then they would bang on the door in
frustration. They did it to mine. I have this secure lock from Amazon which
when combined with the lock makes it impossible to unlock from the outside.
Well. Unless they kick the door down or do a ‘Heres Johnny’ skit. I sleep
better with it on and having music on helps. Although now the fans are on it
drowns them out as well.

Proud of myself today. After a wobble this morning from Ben. He started
having the misophonia thing again, where he’s super alert to any noises, which
invoke his fight or flight response and goes ape. He starts kicking his door
really hard and screaming out the window. I was with the dogs downstairs and
they went batshit crazy. I shouted up at Ben, then had to text D to calm him
down as he triggered my FND and I started drooling like an idiot and not being
able to type on my phone. He left the house for fresh air, and he came back an
hour later (he did check in on WhatsApp that he went to the shop with some
money he ‘found’) all calm and his usual self. I was still a bit of a mess.
Then D’s mum and boyfriend came in without D and they don’t speak English. Got
a hug from them both. Ben came down and had hugs too. Then they sprang into
action, picking up dog poo, tidying and started mowing the back. All in like 5
minutes of arriving. I in my lovely lameness just sat down awkwardly as they were
doing jobs I should be doing but I can’t do any more. D came back and I left. I
resisted the urge to go to Asda and pick up alcohol. It was tempting but I
resisted. Not going to be that guy. So that’s why I’m proud of myself today.

This is a good one. My brother, the slag, phoned me and we spoke for 45
minutes about lots of different things that for reasons of privacy I won’t go
into. It was nice talking to him though. Not a lot of people I can talk to on
the phone. Owen has phone issues, D isn’t going to like to talk and yeah that’s
it. The stuff I can say like talking about the past and moving on, how he’s
doing well in his job and his drinking is more under control. It was nice to
hear that he has a positive outlook on things.

Right. Meetings tomorrow about training. Bed.

 

Enough stalling

Andy Young5 Comments

I’ve been meaning to do a post all day but keep finding ways to avoid it. Why? I have no idea. The short stories are nearing an end. Thank god. I’ve pre-written and scheduled the last of them and my god they were hard, the last ones, you’ll see.

It’s raining. Which I love. The dogs are less so because one of them, Dobby, doesn’t like rain. He won’t go outside, he’ll run off if you open the garden door and hide somewhere. Hopefully, it will stop soon and I can try and walk them. I managed a walk with D the other day where I had Dobby because she’s small and using only one stick. Managed to do it so was very proud of myself. So will try them one at a time, with a stick and my phone in case I fall over. Let’s see how we get on.

I called the crisis line again but had to leave a message. Must be a weekend with no doctors available so everyone calls them. Just waiting for the call back now and I can chat my lovely depressed head off to them and see what jovial advice they will have for me.

Now. Something to do till the rain stops. I’m aware you can walk the dogs in the rain but I’d rather not be pulled and slip on the grass with the stick so am being sensible. If it doesn’t stop then D will have to retake them.

My left side is feeling numb all of a sudden. I get anxiety attacks over the random symptoms. If I have a mental health problem I have a toolbox of things that will sort it out before it gets to dangerous levels. Like the crisis line, counting things, taking PRN meds, and music. But with the FND I have nothing as of yet that I can use apart from “Sit down” and have missing time again thus pushing the no-driving button which I sorely need to do. So what do I do? Ignore it? cope with the symptoms till they stop? then it’s just a matter of getting used to it. How do you get used to fucking stroke symptoms? Argh.

Started talking to dickhead (brother) and held a decent conversation for once. We both agreed it would be nice for him to spend some time with Ben as he is his uncle and then I can spend some time with the brother as well. We don’t have any more family. Not in the sense of, oh I can call such and such. Mum and Dad, Gran x2, Grand Dad x2, various uncles and aunts. So it’s just me, him, and our half-sister from my dad’s side. We don’t talk much. We do the birthday niceties. I’ll drop her a message today as it’s been a while. She lives up in Scotland. It might be nice to go and see her for coffee or lunch. Should have that as a goal.

The left side has corrected itself and is left with tremors making it hard to type. Or re-type. Thank god for Grammarly.