Honor Is Just a Word

I live in a family that neither forgives nor forgets.  Today was a cocktail of doing what I was told, getting yelled at, and anger which almost came to blows.  The last one is a long time coming.  My brother wants to beat my a*s.  He is retired Army and the Good Son.  I'm the Goofas of Goofas and Gallant.  For almost four years I've done my best not to argue with anybody in my family.  Today my brother skipped past four years of compliance and went back twenty one years to the failure of my first marriage.  The fucked up part about that to me is not that my mother and brother keep grinding that into my mind, it's that at this stage of the game, I've done a bit of correcting the mistakes I've made in the past, but a failed union is still what is remembered about me.  I've pushed forward in my life, but my past is the only memorable thing about me.

I remember looking him in the eyes as he rattled off my faults and problems, holding Bootydo by his harness because he was getting concerned.  My brother was starting to yell at me and that's when my Mother came in and Dad shuffled to his chair at the kitchen table.  The strange thing is that my brother was mistaken on a lot of his points.  I didn't argue.  Not at first.  My brother started dropping f***s like they were Goddamn hand grenades.  Dad told him to stop saying that s**t, but he was fraggin' every sentence.  I corrected his errors with proof through texts, but it wasn't enough.  He was taking his two and a half weeks of anger out on me.  He told me to get the f**k out, so I waved to my Mom and Dad, told them I loved them, and walked out the door.  As I'm buckling Bootydo's harness into the seat belt, I hear the door slam.  He stands at the front of my truck in aggressive stance.  As I shut the door, the tirade continues outside.  He brings up said marriage and goes back to yell mode.  I ask him if this was why he told me to get the f**k out.  He said something, but I was done.  I just walked away, but kept him in eyesight until I was passed to see if he was going to switch stance for a better shot.  Got in my truck and left.

I mean, after all, I still had to go meet up with my ex.