New Year's Resolution: Don't Open My Email

So my brother called me the other day and left me a message. The last comment he made before he hung up was, "oh yea, I got an email, from our dad...give me a call". 

That sentence made my stomach drop. Life seems easy and carefree when my dad is not involved in it, but just that little comment is enough to start the anxiety that everything is about to fall to shit. I didn't even know what the email said, and I knew I didn't get an email so it wasn't directed at me, but still, anxiety. 

My dad lives in a world of manufactured insanity, that isn't to say he is sane and just acting, he is most likely a by the book sociopath and paranoid schizophrenic but he's also an asshole of the highest degree, and that isn't bad brain chemicals, that's just pure asshole shining through.

I never realize just how calm my suburban life really is until he tries to reenter the picture and remind me that he thinks he's in the mafia and thinks he's a super criminal and thinks he's connected and portrays himself as a secret millionaire and a war hero and  blah blah blah blah blah blah. As his kids, we weren't impressed by watching him lie about being a bad-ass crime boss, we were simply keenly aware that our dad HATED who he really was so much that he had to pretend he was always someone else; eventually we learned to hate him as much (or more) as he hated himself. It's because of him that I've always wanted  a boring, non eventful suburban life and I have that as long as he stays away.

But back to the email; I called my brother back and he read the email to me over the phone. It was silly as hell. It wasn't my dad asking to see us, it wasn't my dad asking how we were, it wasn't a pleasant holiday greeting. It was a typical insecure bullshit fishing expedition trying to get my brother to respond to him. 

We figured out that the reason for the email was rooted in the fact that my brother has a show of his photographs going on at the Detroit Institute of Arts right now. On Christmas day, our aunt brought over a coffee table book from the DIA that had some of my brother's work in it. She explained our dad (her brother, who she still speaks with) got the book for her, because he went down to the DIA to see my brother's show. We figured that the sole reason for this inane contact with my brother was all part of some bullshit bragging to whoever he was dating/married to now about his famous son; He probably took this person to the DIA show,  proud of his son's work, bragging of his famous son, and was asked, "where is your son?". Instead of answering, "we don't talk because I'm batshit crazy and physically, mentally and emotionally abused my children" he probably said something along the lines of, "Oh he's really busy and travels a lot, but you'll meet him". Then hastily put together an email to my brother under the guise of, "oh I found this old picture I thought you might want" hoping to get a response from this ice breaker and possibly introduce his new partner to his famous son. 
.

It may seem nuts to anyone reading this that we would read so much into this, and infer such a wild back-story, but that's because you probably didn't grow up with a crazy conman as a father. To my brother and I this seems more than reasonable, it seems to be the most probable scenario.

So my brother said he's not responding to the email, and I said good. We agreed unless he comes back to one of us in order to apologize for everything he's ever done to us, we're never responding to any of his approaches, it's for the best for everyone. 

It's wild how one little 3 sentence email that wasn't even sent to me can get my mind spinning like this, but it obviously can. Oh well, I need to go take my Paxil and Prozac and Valium now.

.