An Ending.

Today I got up, and scrapbooked a double-page. The "Shaelee Elizabeth" page, complete w/ all our old notes that I've saved. I'm really enjoying my scrapbooking, it's something quiet that I can do and it's saving my memories and making sure they don't get damaged. I also enjoy the creativity, the ability to create something.
When you open my jumbo-scrapbook, compliments of Wal-Mart, the first page is dedicated to the musical Grease that we put on last year, then you flip the page and the next 2 continue to display the lives of performers... including a poster given to me by a fan ;)
Then you continue to flip and you find the Shaelee Elizabeth spread, old notes, old quotes and old laughs.
Once I finished my page my mom and I headed downstairs to start working on my brother's room. We started at 10 and finished at 3, w/ a stop in the middle to run into Sooke for paint & subway. It was hard work, and only for that room would I do it. I want that room, I'm not sure why but I've got a special attachment to that room... even though I've never inhabited it. I don't know why, but I just have this feeling that me, and only me, can make this room great.
Sorting through my brother's possesions w/ my mom was sad and conflicting for me. We threw out a lot of garbage and mould but we've kept all of his things. My mother refusing to be blamed for the loss of something and me just refusing to let him go. She found a sick pleasure in going through this things, tossing them about on her whim I'm sure. I felt it was a bit of an invasion of privacy, even though he's gone through and picked what he wants and left the rest up to us.
Cleaning out the room and begining to paint it was the first step in making it into the room for the exchange students, but it was also the first step to getting my brother out of that room. My parents want him gone, but I don't. I felt like a conspirator in the plot to rid the house of him. I refuse to let go, I refuse to hate him as my mother does.
I know that cleaning out the room, and making it hopefully eventually mine isn't kicking him out... just moving him upstairs. It still scares me, any shift in our fragile existance. I doubt anyone knows how I feel, I don't know anyone who lives w/ and loves half-siblings that they haven't known all their life. Maybe you have half-siblings, but don't see them very often. You know they're there but it doesn't matter too much... especially when you're the one your parents left them for instead of the other way around. You're the current family, not the one left behind.
Now when I think of Andrew I know I love him, and I want him in my life 'till the end but I don't have that confidence that you might have when you think of your full siblings, or even half-siblings that you've grown up w/. I don't have memories of us when we were little. I don't have scars from when we climbed our first tree. I don't have the bonds that make living w/out each other seem impossible. For my it seems very possible.
I know cleaning out the room is a good thing, a small thing that I've created into some sort of metaphor for something to come. It's not. It's a good thing, fixing up the room so eventually it can be mine. He's still here, I still love him.
After cleaning out the room, I took a bath to try and calm myself. Also to try and get the paint off me and the paint thinner out of my pores. Then I went to work, feeling like I really DIDN'T want to work. The fact that Carrie (ex-manager until she quit, but still does a shift from time to time), Debbie (current manager, and the glue that keeps the place together) and Patrick (our owner, and one all-around guy) were working didn't help. Also Aaron wasn't working which sucked, it's nice to have a friend around. It was slow so I got to go home early, after Patrick asked me if I'd like to start babysitting for him. How was I supposed to say no ?
When I got home I pulled apart my closet, and I think i know what I'm going to wear to Markus's !!!!!!!!! I'm soooooooooo excited !! The thought of Markus's keeps me smilin' no matter what I'm doin, well... it's really just the thought of Hazen. He keeps me smilin'.
My outfit's almost ready, I just need a belt. A belt, no not a belt but the belt. Maybe I'll find it when I go shopping w/ Hazen's little sister Madeleine tomorrow. I'm taking her out for a girl's day, complete w/ a movie, dinner and shopping !