Brothers keeper

A while ago I made what I called a goal cloud. Sort of like a bucket list but with some lofty things that I want to do (go to Philmont) and some less lofty things that I just haven’t gotten around to (purchasing new domains -DONE). Some are things that can happen in one day (win HQ -DONE) and others are long term processes, this is one of those. 

Before you make any friends in the outside world, your first friends are the siblings or cousins that are in your own house. My brother is less than two years younger than me and he’s a quick learner so we played with the same toys, watched the same TV, fell in love with the same movies and participated in the same activities. He also had his growth spurts younger so we were often very close in size, so much so people asked if we were twins. 

As time goes on your circle of friends grow. And you find your own passions that don’t always match up. You learn to see faults in people (seriously tell me one person you’ve known 42 years that doesn’t annoy you sometimes) and you drift apart. Which is what happened with me and my brother. 

I know that I let things fester inside and I explode when I’ve had enough. But I don’t like confrontation which helps with the build up.I always need to have validation, I have a very fragile ego, and I can be very passive aggressive (I’ve had a lot of time realizing how shitty I am in this past year). While he enjoys confrontation, is kind of self centered and uses diminishing your point of view as a weapon. So as you can imagine that is a recipe for conflict. 

Over the years there have been plenty of blow ups and times where we just don’t acknowledge each other at all. And we have drifted father apart. Yes there are times when we could have good times together but they became less and less. 

So when I worked on my goal cloud, one of those goals was to work on my relationship with my brother. This wasn’t going to happen overnight. He had moved a few states away and I hate talking on the phone. So it would have to happen in person when the opportunity arose. He and his family came over to visit our mom and spent around 30 hours here. And yes I have an odd work schedule but I didn’t see him at all, I chatted with my sister in law, I spent a little time with my niece and nephews, but I didn’t say one word to my brother, never saw him. I’m not about chasing people for attention. I posted something online, and he called me and asked if that was about him. I dismissed it, telling him everything was not about him. 

Then I noticed the post it note in the cloud and realized I can’t wait for this guy if I want to achieve my goal. I had to take responsibility for it myself. 

My mom’s birthday was coming up and I texted to see if my brother was coming into town. He said he was and for a myriad of reasons he was coming solo. So I said he could crash in my apartment, which would be cooler and more comfortable than the basement. He got in late, I was already asleep. 

He was going to hit a museum in the morning after dropping mom off at dialysis and I was going to pick her up. Then he asked if I wanted to go check out the exhibit, and I saw this as an opportunity. So we both dropped her off and then headed into the city to see a display at the Museum of the Native American. We walked around lower Manhattan for a while before it opened up. 

We talked about a lot of things. Which was good. It was the first time we talked about my separation. The museum was really interesting, he confronted the guards over the shoe thing (he doesn’t like to wear shoes). We picked up mom and were planning on taking her for a birthday lunch, but she needed some rest. So we ran some errands together, installed a new shower head, played video games and had a pretty good day. 

Is all the damage fixed no. Are we going in a better direction. I think so. Am I ready to cross off that post it, not yet.