Soldato (Solider)

Again with a rapid update. I hope you'll bear with me, dear readers, as Lauren needs another rant-session to prevent blood sugar from further sky-rocketing and unpleasant homicidal rampages, which could very well result in childish name-calling and the rapid consumption of comfort pie. Lots and lots of comfort pumpkin pie.

It's late again, and I'm so overwhelmed by many projects that need doing that I don't know where to start. Soooo, I'm working on my journal posthaste. Makes sense.

My siblings arrived back from California late last night, (Gone on a three day retreat) and Julia dropped a bombshell that maybe Kyle and I should have seen coming. I probably would have been less surprised if she'd announced that she was quitting her job and enrolling in clown college.

After what is now three years, my sister plans to step down for the guardianship race of my brother's custody. She's exhausted, and last trial's awful conclusion has decimated her hopes to continue. Because my grandmother has no money (Pardoning the funds she extracted from her three dead husbands), she's been allowed to dip into the funds my great-granny left for Aaron's safe-keeping in the future, that he might have a home and care should he carry the Huntington's gene.

This will mean that Julia's name will be taken off the co-guardianship contract, and she won't be legally permitted to see Aaron anymore. More likely than not, this also extends to me, as I don't want to visit Chicago Heights ever again, if I can help it. I've also pretty much terminated any possibility of contact with that side of the family from what I said that was recorded on tape.

I don't mind. Although it's a bittersweet feeling at best, people who would help Julia move Aaron into a residential care facility and then spread nasty rumors about her, not show up at her wedding, send nasty messages telling her that she'll have an unhappy marriage and rot in hell.......

What sort of family is that to have? My Aunt Anna told me to break Julia's windows over the phone when Julia announced that I wasn't going back to live in the Heights. (Which, of course, I could never do.) Aunt Connie sent me a letter telling me how wicked and how Satan was going to be gnawing on my entrails when she hadn't been to church for years and left her baby for Mommy and Daddy to raise, allowing the child to grow up believing that she was her sister. Aunt Vicky visited my dying mother with the announcement that she wouldn't bring anything "sketchy" up, only to rant on how evil she was being for trying to take her son away from his grandmother.

No.

While I might see slightly unfamiliar faces at holidays, and I feel like a strange, burdensome lump in the corner sometimes, Kyle's family has been very good to me. I held his mother's hand while we were at the Eve service at their church, singing Christmas hymns. Alvaro's family has been very kind to me also, though there is a language barrier. And of course, (For those whom do not want to be picking sap out of their hair, please move to the next paragraph) I have my friends-the family I was lucky enough to choose. The ones I've met face to face, and the ones I've met on online communities who've been so good to me, my heart goes out to you. You make me very happy.

But the idea of not seeing my big brother (Though he's always felt like my little brother) anymore really makes me sad, and while I wish this didn't have to end this way, I can respect Julia's reasons for stepping down. She thought about this long and hard, and made a large pro and cons list for staying and leaving. And finally, Aaron's health, the rigged court system (Thank you very much, Mr. President, for giving us a judge like this), and Julia's own mental and physical health were all enormous factors. She and Kyle want to try and have children soon, and if she stays, then it's a lifelong commitment to court every month. Taking off days from work and having to work even harder the next day, or even on her days off so that she could be there, when more often then not, Eline would not show up. The simmering resentment from people who have no place to be there at the court, who mark Julia as a monster for wanting to help Aaron become a productive member of society other than a comatose vegetable. The countless dollars both my siblings have lost from their estates.

But this was never about the money. People with autism hate change. Aaron's lived this life for so many years, any small transition makes him go haywire. The court will at least see to it that he's going to school again.

But all the same, it feels so...hopeless. In the end, when we vowed we wouldn't give Eline what she wanted-walking away....

My name's not on that document. Julia is the one who wants to do better than our mother and grandparents and raise the child in a happy, wholesome environment. Heck, she doesn't even want to be around the court proceedings while she's pregnant!

It's quiet. I feel frozen. Why?

I got rescued. Why not Aaron, too? Julia's not the villain, here. When it didn't look like she could get Aaron out of my desperate grandmother's hands initially, she tried her luck with getting me and Ariel out of the web. As you well know, I was the only one that she could legally take.

I feel so sad, but I think it's slowly dawning on me just how lucky I really am.

My mother wanted Aaron out. Heck, even my stupid lousy father wanted to get him out. And the judge's heart still melted for the woman who's warped his existence.

I rant and I rave, but at my core, I'm just so tired.

I don't understand why this happened.

But I hope that I will when I look back someday.

~*~*~*~*~*~

There are stories I haven't read, meaningful letters that need replying to, stories that I need to write.

But for now, I'm just frozen over.

I can't even cry.