Velourious Life

My little brother and me at his high school graduation.

I haven’t seen him in almost 4 years. In fact, throughout our lives we’ve only seen each other about 5 times. 
My father had my little brother out of an affair with a stripper he worked with (obviously, before my father became a Jehovah’s Witness.) After he became a JW, I thought for sure we’d see more of my brother- we didn’t. My father told my siblings and I that:
1) Jehovah isn’t going to kill our non-JW brother because if the parents are JW then Jehovah saves the kids. (As if my father’s righteousness is so overabundant that it will just spill onto our brother. Which doesn’t even make sense according to the JW belief that a person can’t even earn their own salvation. How the fuck can you save someone else too?!)
and 2) My father didn’t care about spending time with my brother because after Armageddon they’d have eternity on a paradise Earth to spend with each other.
This translates into reality as my brother growing up without his father and us siblings never really getting to be in each others’ lives.
When I talked to my brother after his graduation he told me about his life. His mother just got out of prison. He hasn’t lived with her in years. He lives with friends who give him a spot to sleep. His sister, who’s 19 years old, is already married and a mother of 2 children. About 2 years ago, my brother was running from the cops and got caught. He was sitting in jail and thought, “shit, I’m alone. My mother’s got her own problems. My sister’s got her own family. She can’t be looking after me too. And, my father doesn’t want me. I’m alone.” It was a wake up call for him and he decided to get himself together because no one else was going to help him. 
He applied himself in school and graduated. He’s got a small job that pays his bills and car and he’s talked to counselors and gotten himself into junior college to start taking his core classes. He’s only 18!
I’m immensely proud of him!
And, I’m totally pissed off that our father is only 4 hours away perfectly capable of being a real father to him, but chooses to live in his delusion leaving my brother alone to deal with all the stuff he’s gone through.
While I miss my siblings still stuck in the cult, I’m sooo glad I’m out now and can support my brother. I searched for him for a year after I left and finally found him and never again will years pass by between communication and visits. 
Gerry, you may be winning in the cult but you’re a failure in the real world…and you know it. Have fun in paradise with all those arrogant assholes who treat you and the family like a burden. 

Sho did! Legs and cardio baby!

(via armslegsandthighsohmy)

…you know? You just go through processes, life, that just bring you closer to who you want to be. You go through times where you say, “you know what? I fucking hate that about myself. I’m changing this shit right now.” And you realize that everyone around you has loved this…you…this person you are, but they might not love who you feel like you want to be- who you feel you are, you know, after you’ve realized that this is who you shoulda been the whole time.
This growth, this process, the self-discovery is so exciting and scary. I can change- which is daunting and satisfying.
I’ve hesitated to admit who I am…
But I’ve lived so long for everyone but myself. I love myself and, yeah, I’m not going to keep quite about that anymore.