Bitch-ass insomnia. Or, rather, becoming an orphan.

So even with a whole Ambien on an empty stomach -- do I need a glass of wine on top? -- I'm a-fucking-wake at 4 something or other. This problem is all in my head. But then, as Dr. M might note, *everything* is in my head. I can blame *all* of this shit on my mitochondria, busy as they are changing my food to energy, thus my fueling my thoughts. Hmm. I like having something to blame. But something so small? I don't know. Kinda makes me feel like a bully.

I held a human brain in my hands last year. It's quite a bit bigger than a mitochondrion -- and something I can wrap my hands around -- so I think I'll go with blaming the brain. Dr. M would probably find that reasonable.... Not that it matters at this hour whether I'm being reasonable.

So here's the thing my goddamned brain has been doing tonight. In Family Therapy class, it started to cry. (Not I, *it*! (Now available on eBay.)) There was some discussion about parents going on -- and what kinds of relationships they have with their kids -- and I got to thinking about how queer relationships are persistently invalidated by the broader culture. If you don't get married, especially in the traditional sense (and even when you do it in the gay sense), your anniversaries are frequently invisible to everyone else. The ways in which you can become rather substantially tied up in the life of another is commonly ignored. This has utterly been the case with my family -- my dad doesn't seem to know GF's name even after more than six years together, and my mom, well ... she likes GF more than she likes me, but she still doesn't give any cred to our relationship. GF is still "the woman who cooks" for me. With GF's family, things are different. All of them are emotionally detached to the point of being mere satellites for one another, but they're still nice people and they still circulate, and they still treat me like I'm a member of the family. Dad-in-law invited us to dinner last night, but I couldn't go on accounts of school. He sent home word that he "missed" me. He's a good guy.

But that's not why the old brain started crying. The old brain sent its terrible message to my eyes to tear up in class -- damn you, brain! -- when I started thinking of that genie I released from the bottle. Saturday's discussion about GF's Grand Plan -- grad school Back East immediately after I finish my own program -- has sparked a sense of inevitability within me, a notion that our lives are on different paths that can't easily be reconciled. She said as much herself on Saturday: "When you compromise on a life path question, someone ends up suffering and the relationship ends up damaged anyway." True... Then she added, "And I don't mean to be having a long-distance relationship with you for seven years. That's not going to happen." ... No shit.

So that conversation comes to me, and I started thinking about my family. This is what queued up the water. See, GF, our dogs and her family -- that *is* my family. I have these other people in the world two whom I'm biologically related, but who do not constitute a "family" in any positive sense of the word. I'm *trying* to build some kind of relationship with my sister, The Professor, but she also seems to prefer GF to me. Indeed, she and/or her husband, The Fancy School Tenured Professor, will probably be instrumental in helping GF get her West Coast bottom in an East Coast school. As I've said, I do not anticipate being able to make this move for myriad reasons. And this will leave me ... an orphan. Seriously. A fucking orphan.

It's true, I do also have a brother. But many years ago, he cast off all sense of obligation to anyone in our so-called family and simply, though barely, tolerates contact from the rest of us. And, yes, I do have a guy I call "Dad." This is a man who has cancer but tells me he doesn't, a man who years ago seems to have separated from his wife but hasn't told her (he simply got a job in Atlanta and left her in Dallas) and, for the love of jesus, he watches all the shows on the WB that I never manage to see, so we have very little to talk about when we talk. And then, there's that crazy lady who wants me to call her "Mom." I tried to diagnose her with something from the DSM last weekend, and was dismayed to find that although she may be an Authoritarian, Religiously Righteous, Utterly Self-Centered Female with a Mile-Wide Mean Streak, that is not necessarily a disorder. So I don't know what the fuck is wrong with her, but I do *not* like her and don't anticipate that changing.

There was one family member I loved, who I simply adored. My youngest brother was my only ally in this collection of nutbags and ne'er-do-wells. We were cut from the same stone -- that being the stone that actually had some sanity, compassion, a good sense of humor and a strongly held belief in the power of loving, peaceful relationships. He would be the one who taught me to experience joy. But he's dead.

So I was sitting there in Family Therapy class this evening and thinking, Shit! When GF goes -- or when I finally cut this fraying chord -- I'll lose my family. I'll be a goddamned orphan. (plop, plop, annoying teardrops!)

Now, it is true that I'm an existentialist to the core. I know we are all isolated from one another. No one can ever share the experience of another. We're born alone, and we all die alone. But wouldn't it be nice to have a decent family from beginning to end? Or even just for a little while in between? The closest I've ever come is GF, the dogs and the in-laws. I feel heartsick because I think losing all that is inevitable. It seems the only question is whether it will be a slow death. And whether I'll be able to keep my dog.