What's your light in the dark?

Have you ever felt emotionally hung over? That's how I feel after enforcing some mega boundaries with my mentally ill/addict family. Do you guys have family/friends that you have had to do that with? Or wish you could do that with? It's EXHAUSTING. I've gone to four gentle yoga classes in the last 48 hours.

Many of you know that I have a bipolar alcoholic mom. I haven't had any contact with her in about six years.

But what I don't mention very often is my brother. He's only 18 months younger than me so - while we are half siblings with different dads - we grew up together in the same house from the time we were infants until I left home a few weeks shy of my 16th birthday. We had a spotty relationship after that.

In hindsight, it was like I got out and he was still stuck inside.

Since he never did "get out", he continued to spiral down and soon became properly ravaged by the same mental illness and addiction problems that plagued our mom.

The last time I saw my brother was a decade ago. He begged me to drive him to California immediately so he could the coast one more time before it sank into the ocean. He later informed me that he was seriously planning a move to Mexico to live as a pirate.

Since then, he's randomly contacted me. It usually starts out with him composing a reasonably sane sounding message and me thinking, "Oh - he sounds good, maybe he's gotten the help he needed." But it always quickly takes a dark turn and then I have to cease contact.

He reached out to me via text on Tuesday and I sent him a blog I had written recently about "Adverse Childhood Experiences" (ACEs). I had thought of him when I had initially written it because, as I mentioned above, we grew up together and obviously had a lot of the same challenges.

He really liked the piece and thanked me for sharing.

He continued to text me throughout the day and things started to ramp up. When he began saying things like he missed me and loved me so much and wanted me to be auntie to his children I knew that I needed to be honest with where I was at.

I told him that I was happy to lend an ear, but I needed to go slow and that was all I could do at the moment. I said I couldn't be aunt to his kids or do any of that with him until I felt safe with him and that wouldn't happen until he was in a sustained place of stability. Like he's done his work, is in a good place, and I can trust him. I said I had worked really hard on myself over the last decade and a huge part of that was having strong, clear boundaries. I said it was just self preservation for me because I can't help him or do the healing for him.

Initially he responded well, but I remember feeling like the response wasn't authentic - he was just acting, telling me what I wanted to hear or what he thought would sound mature and balanced.

I spent the rest of the day feeling sad about the whole thing - sad that either of us had any ACEs, sad that he had more than me, sad at the thought of how much worse things got for him and my sister after I left home.

Thankfully I had my favorite restorative class at Metta Yoga coming up that evening. I went to that class and I was legit restored. The teacher, Vanessa, was so tender with her adjustments and touches it was like SHE KNEW.

Then I awoke Wednesday morning to a string of texts from him that were just nasty.

And I thought, shit. I guess I have to let him go too. I can't keep repeating this same pattern. Even though it only happens once a year or so, it just stinks.

I still felt very sad for him, but also angry and violated that I shared even the tiniest bit of myself with him and he had exploited it.

There was a flow yoga class that morning with Kurt and I thought, shit yeah. Let's go flow. Let me move this shit around and then out so it doesn't settle in my body.

It worked.

But after the flow class I had more nasty texts. And I thought literally fuck this. I am changing my phone number. It’s not enough to just block his number because it changes every few months anyway.

I've had the same phone number since I got a cell phone 16 years ago. I thought of changing it some years ago at the height of creepy voicemails from my mom and another string of weird texts from my brother, but at that time I was an active doula with a thousand business cards passed out around town with that fucking number on it.

That's not an issue anymore though - so I CAN change my number. I called my dad to see if he would do it too in sort of a symbolic cutting of the last ties to them (my dad gets the same creepy voicemails and texts that he's just learned to ignore like me.)

I made that decision and then immediately went to yet another restorative yoga class. Where again it was the most tender, nurturing class of all time ever.

After class, I changed my phone number.

This morning I woke up just feeling like shit, crabby, pouty and not well rested.

Grateful to have the outlet, I went to yet another restorative class. My third in 48 hours.

And then of course - home to write it out because, like one of my favorite writing coaches says, "There's a lot we don't talk or write about, and so much we all have in common that goes unknown." Words are medicine and sharing is cathartic.

It's funny how much "lighter" the darkness is when you have an arsenal of things you can do to help yourself. What if I didn't have yoga? What if I wasn't a writer? What if the machiattos my boyfriend makes weren't so delicious? It would be so much worse.

What's your light in the dark?