Early last Thursday morning I got a call from my cousin Brent. He had heard from my brother Morgan's roommates that Morgan was acting strange again and it appeared that he had gone back to using heroin. Brent wanted to bring my Dad into the picture, I agreed, and I gave him the phone number.

A few hours later I called my Dad to find out his plans. He said that he was going to be driving up to Oakland from Southern California (about a 6.5 hour drive) that day, and arrive around 7:00pm. Was I free?

I told him that I had friends coming over for a dinner party, and I didn't think that I could reach them all in time to tell them not to come. Dad said it was no problem, he didn't think he would need me there. I said I thought it would be better if he talked to
Morgan on his own, since Morgan respects him and craves a good relationship with him. I also recommended a long-term inpatient facility for Morgan. He agreed.

I went hiking around 6:30pm with some girlfriends, then we came back to the house for dinner around 8:30pm. I had a message on my voice mail from my Dad. He had not been able to leave until relatively late, and so would not be arriving in Oaland until 11:00pm. He thought that I should be there after all, and my cousin was going to come over as well, and bring some friends with him.

Bring some friends with him? What the fuck? Like this was going to be some sort of sideshow? Or were they planning on roping my brother like a steer and wrestling him to the ground? Yeah, THAT will make him willing to seek treatment, having a bunch of strangers show up to sit in judgement on him. Ugh. This was getting ugly.

And what the fuck? My Dad wanted ME to hop in my car at 11:00pm and drive for an hour, then likely stay up all night in this "family intervention"? When I am 8 weeks pregnant and can barely keep my eyes open after 10:30pm?

There were two ADDITIONAL messages on my voice mail. One from my cousin Brent, who sounded pissed that I hadn't answered my phone, and one from my aunt Polly in Maui (his mother, my favorite aunt) who said that she was trying to reach me to encourage me to come and be part of the intervention, and how was my pregnancy going? You would think that *she* might be sympathetic, and realize that maybe it wouldn't be a good idea for me to stay up all night, but no, it's all about my goddamned brother and *his* needs.

My guests were still there, so I told them what was going on, and they were like, "Are you nuts? You're thinking about driving to Oakland now? You need your rest! What can you possibly do there anyways that would be worth staying up all night?"

I decided to just not respond to the calls. Fuck it, I wasn't about to stay up all night and be driving around on the freeways exhausted. I almost drove off the road one time coming home late, and I wasn't even knocked up. Screw it. Brother or no brother, I was going to be selfish and just take care of myself.

Well, it was a good decision, but then I fucked up. I was going to call the next day and ask how things were going, explain how it was unreasonable to expect me to stay up all night and drive for an hour each way in my condition, and offer any other help I could.

But I didn't call. I felt too guilty and ashamed. So then I didn't call Saturday or Sunday either, because then too much time had gone by.

And now I'm in a bad situation becasue it's Monday and no one has called me and I haven't called them, and I'm sure everyone thinks I'm the most cold, selfish sister in the world. Ugh.

I guess I'll just pull myself together and call my Dad tonight to see what's going on. If he's pissed at me, he's pissed at me. If everyone feels that I've let them down, then fine. I'll just have to deal with it, and so will they. Aargh, this sucks.