My Manifesto: The Incoherent Ramblings of a Madman

Someone asked me about my brother yesterday and if I felt any more or any less love for him....if the things he's done that have affected me personally and my family have changed the way I see him....if the distance that has grown between us upsets me - it is something I try not to think about.

It does upset me that my brother and I are not as close as what we used to be. However, let's face it, as we all grow up, we grow apart. Each of us finds our place in the world with our own families and friends.

The best we can do is be close spectators in the lives of our family because no matter how much we wish to go back the past it will never happen.

I don't blame my brother for the way he turned out. I don't blame my parents for the way my brother turned out. I think he's as much a victim of circumstance as he is of anything else. He took drugs, he robbed people, he was a bad person. The important thing is that he has been to the bottom - and is intelligent and determined enough to get himself up from it.

Blame is such a useless thing to do. What is in the past is in the past - we only learn the past so as to not make the same mistakes again in the future. Will he re-lapse? of course he will. History always repeats itself in the most terrible ways. Either way - he knows we love him and always will.