over 1000 hits

first of all, i would like to send a big thank you out to everyone who reads this blog. since i started keeping track of hits in late june of this year, the site has recieved over 1000 hits! i'm not sure what this means exactly. i know my page views have been growing, so i have about an average of 12 readers a day. this is great! for a little unadvertised blog...this is more than i can ask for. thank you, thank you, thank you.

now, on to the good stuff. i hope everyone had a great long weekend and a happy labor day. i wish i could say i did. i didn't get up to much this weekend, just went to my parents' and sat by the pool. i got too much sun, ate too much homemade zucchini bread and didn't exercise nearly enough. my diet all but ruined, i also proceeded to instigate a fight between almost every member of the family.

sometimes i wonder why i come home at all.

i'm tired of ignoring the obvious. sometimes when i come home i feel like there is a big elephant in the room. things are suggested, and they never get done. ideas shrivel and die in this house. they are sucked up by a feeling of sullen indifference and pessimism. even i feel unmotivated here.

ok, so i'm unmotivated and pessimistic a lot of the time. well, this is where i get it from! at least i got out and got a college degree and a job! that's more than i can say for my brothers.

the pessimism and indifference has taken hold deep within my brothers, in their core. i think they were born with more inherent carelessness than me. i could never not do a homework assignment without feeling sick to my stomach. any grade on any test or paper under a B makes my knees weak. i'm not sure if my brothers ever had those feelings, which i associated with responsibility and concern. if they ever did, those feelings have long since disappeared.

they are now old enough to take care of themselves, to look into their future and imagine what they want to do. at the very least, they are old enough to have a girlfriend. but they seem genuinely undisturbed by their lack of ideas of the future, lack of good grades, lack to girlfriend. sometimes i think i worry about it more than them!

so i got sick of all this tiptoeing around. no, i am not proud of picking of them. but i can't say i'm all that proud of the men they are becoming.

i'm sorry that i take out my negative energy in this way, on them. i love my family, i really do. i can't think of any way to fix the problems that we all try to pretend are not there. but at least i try to address them sometimes.

but when it comes to the ones you love the most, sometimes it easier to just accept things as they are and stop trying to change things. although, those people are the first to forgive you, when things get a little out of hand.

i guess my question is: is it better to keep quiet about things you are unhappy with amongst your family (or even your closest friends) or speak up and risk causing a rift?

i don't think that question has a good answer. and i know everyone has faced it at one time or another, whether a brother is being stupid and stubborn or a friend has become infatuated with a bad boyfriend.

after causing a raucous fight tonight, the problems i see in this family are no closer to being solved. the scars are too deep to mend, at least in one night. maybe ever.

but now i know better. i'll just keep my mouth shut.