I have been in a huge burnt-out funk lately, ignoring phone calls and emails and letters, just completely isolating myself. I was so tired of trying so hard to not let anyone down, ever, and in the process, letting EVERYONE down, including myself. Most OFTEN myself. So I shut everyone out, and I ignored letters from my brother. Hell, to be perfectly honest, I was too much of a coward to even OPEN any of them. I knew they would be frantic and worried at my very abrupt and very total silence.
But I have felt better lately, so I wrote him a letter explaining things out and I have sent him two more letters since then, but he sent me one last letter before he got any of my letters, and I opened it. I feel so terrible.
He says he was so worried that he was having heart palpitations and scary thoughts. He tried to communicate in a humorous way the thoughts he was having. He said he thought that 1) he had said or done something that had caused me to dislike him, 2) I'd been replaced by a Liz-shaped doppleganger unable to articulate in any way, 3) I've fallen deathly ill, 4) his darling niece has matured into a mischievous halfling and become such a handful that I cannot spare a moment without watchful eyes on her, 5) I've been kidnapped by an army of undead and I must spend every waking moment entertaining them to keep them from eating my brains, 6) I'm chained up in some sicko's basement somewhere.

I hope he gets one of my letters soon. I really feel bad, but I needed to take that time for just myself, to just have some inner reflection. STILL, I probably should have at least sent him some kind of a card or something to let him know that I was in the land of the living.
But I'm not going to stress over it, because, as I've been telling myself these past weeks, IT IS WHAT IT IS.