it's difficult. i know that objectively this will devastate and shock them, but the suffering i know i'll generate just doesn't seem terribly special or genuine. it's like phoned in. obligatory. i say this because there's no way any of my family members or parents have developed a genuine bond with me. any kind of special connection, anything that would give even an illusion of meaning to their grief. in this house it's like living with two neurotic, socially awkward middle-aged roomates. i barely talk to them. all who know me have an idea of me that's filtered and colored through them, an empty shell they can project whatever they want onto. that's what they're really grieving for. it's all subtly altered to make me, my death, even their supposed "guilt" over it as agreeable to them as possible. they are strangers, plain and simple. they will never know who i really was or what i really did, and they won't care because their version of the events is a lot better.
it feels like their brains are forcing them to be sad and freak out about this. the primate oxytocin bond they had with me was violated so now their brains are all scrambled. it's like getting off a drug. as far as i'm concerned, marriage and child-rearing ruined my mom's life and just deepened the hole my dad's always been in. it was an irresponsible mistake they made that i fixed myself. maybe now that the band-aid's ripped off, they'll go and search for the mental and financial stability they should have had 20 years ago? or they could just fall apart and die. that's always an option. i scare myself when i say this, but that idea makes me feel nothing.
