Recently, my therapist posed an easy question that I still struggle to answer, and it’s been almost two weeks since she asked it.

She had the audacity to ask me…you ready for it? She said…

What do you want?

…I’m sorry, does not compute.

She gave me “homework” to try to start journaling about what I want. I got as far as choosing a cute new notebook I’d bought this summer for this assignment, and writing on the first page, a title: “What I Want.” Then, a line or two down, I restated the question: “What do I want…?”

Then I abruptly closed the notebook and pushed it away from me. That was as far as I got. It was so unfathomable to me as a concept that not only could I not come up with any answers to write down, I couldn’t even bear the thought of taking the time to try. It felt impossible.

The following week in session I explained this struggle. I joked that the only thing I could think of was world peace, which I knew wasn’t really about what I want for myself, so I knew she would tell me no, which is why I didn’t write it down. After we finished laughing, I said, “but I really do want world peace because if everyone in the world stops fighting, I can finally have some peace and quiet and space to myself! The crazy part of my brain that makes me feel like I have to help and fix and solve everything for everyone can finally rest!”

Aha. So what I want is some time and space for myself, where the only thing to attend to is me. Now we’re getting somewhere.

I was born to be my brother’s keeper. I was shaped to parent my parents. I was molded into a caretaker and people-pleaser and shrunk myself into disappearance in order to accommodate everyone else’s needs and keep myself safe as best I could. I don’t know how to consider what I want. I can barely perceive what I need, let alone want. Want is not a verb that has ever been in my repertoire. I couldn’t afford the luxury of wanting anything for myself outside of the shadow of making sure it suited everyone else first. So now, I’m supposed to be trying to listen to myself and figure out what I want (and need too), and advocate for that, regardless of whether that disappoints or upsets people who want me to say yes to them instead of no.

Basically, I want to feel free.

I gotta say, I did NOT expect the pop quiz that was hurled my way today for this new course of study I’m on.

At about midday today, while at work, I got a call from a county sheriff’s department, letting me know that my brother — whom I have not spoken to in over six years at least, and certainly haven’t seen since before I got married — had been arrested the night before, and was currently in jail with a bond set at over fifteen hundred dollars, and he had given them my phone number as a person to call.

I find this telling, because I feel like a person has to be real desperate if they’re giving the number of someone they haven’t talked to in years. But, if it’s either me or our mother, it leads me to think he’s not on speaking terms with her either. Can’t say as I blame him, but it’s really neither here nor there.

I spent the entire afternoon trying to give the officer as much information as I had that I thought would be helpful. I learned a lot about how bonds work. I was told there was an inpatient program that sounded promising, and they could put him in that if some of the bond was paid, and allegedly I would get reimbursed for that amount. I was told that I could pay it anonymously so that he wouldn’t find out I was involved and I wouldn’t have to go to the court appearance. I spent an extremely long time on the phone trying to figure all of that out, trying to help my brother, but in the end, I legitimately could not afford to do so. The officer advised that they would work on figuring out what to do and would call me with an update tomorrow. I missed an entire afternoon of classes, and I am so grateful to my colleagues for covering for me so I could deal with this situation. I’m pissed that this happened because I had things to get done with my students today. But I’ll work it out. That’s all less important than the state of my mental health at this point.

My entire nervous system went right into sister-mom mode like a well oiled machine, even though that machine hadn’t been running for years. It took an emergency session with my therapist and some messaging with excellent friends to help pull me back from the brink and remind me of how far I’ve come. To help me remember that I don’t do this shit anymore. To put it back in my brain that I have fought past my entire life’s training and I’m not responsible for him anymore, and to reboot my new operating system. I have fought so hard — SO hard — to claw myself out of that pit, that deep well full of toxic water. One phone call from jail and I was drowning again.

Ever see the movie Good Will Hunting, with Robin Williams and Matt Damon? Damon plays some math genius who works as a custodian for Harvard, and solves a huge math problem they thought unsolvable. They want him to work for them but he’s obstinate and dismissive. So they send him to therapy with Williams, who unearths some of the boy’s trauma. There’s a scene where he repeats, calmly, resolutely, to Damon: It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. Damon laughs it off at first. It’s not your fault. Then he gets angry. It’s not your fault. Then he starts to cry. It’s not your fault. And the two embrace, and as Damon continues to break down, Williams continues the refrain, it’s not your fault.

It’s not my fault.

My brother’s failures are not my failures. His problems are not mine to fix. And it’s not my fault.

And I am wrecked. I am crushed. I am shattered.

But…I am also free. Or at least, I’m getting there, slowly but surely.

I really like to tell both myself and anyone else who needs to hear it, if it costs you your peace, it’s too expensive. Well, my brother’s poor choices almost cost me my peace and hundreds of dollars today. It’s a price I have no business trying to pay. It’s not my debt.

It’s not my fault.

I need to keep repeating that refrain, because the voices in my head have been screaming very loudly that it is my fault and it is my responsibility. But it’s not. It’s not my fault.

It’s not my fault.

It is a wretched situation, just the latest in a neverending chain of them. But I am not a bracelet maker, I’m a cycle breaker, and it’s not my fault.

It’s not my fault.