Brother Update in New Beginnings

Christmas came and went; nothing to report much on my end. I was going to have a socially distant/isolated Christmas, not so much for my own or the public health, but just because I’m perfectly content to be by myself. My sister called me in the beginning of December to ask me something, and as we laid out our plans, she invited me to come up. I could have used the pandemic as an excuse, but I decided to take her up on the offer. My sister will be 50 this year. Mom died when she was 57. While there’s no guarantee on how long any of us really have, that happenstance inclines me to make the most of the time we can spend together.

My brother still isn’t speaking to us. He quit speaking to Sister a while ago when she quit answering his phone calls. She was simply tired of the negativity. He go on and on about how Mom and Dad are dead, how is ex-fiancé did him wrong, and so on and so forth. I quit talking to me when I politely, yet affirmatively, told him he couldn’t boss me around. I just can’t put up with that again. My mom was very bossy and intrusive, especially with me. When she passed, sad though I was, I saw a silver lining in the possibility that I could chart the rest of my life without her looking over my shoulder or breathing down my neck. When she died, Dad took up that mantle. I knew I was boned when he remarked that “Mom would want us to band together and take care of Rob.” Apparently, “taking care of Rob” entails being bossy, intrusive, needy, and clingy. Now that he’s gone, my brother is assuming that role.

I wrote about this previously, but it warrants being repeated. At first, he was insistent that we take a trip together.

“Where do you want to go, Rob?”
“Nowhere.”
“But where do you want to go?”
“Nowhere.”
“You must want to go somewhere?”
“I really don’t.”
“We could go to Nashville and eat some barbeque and listen to live music.”
“I don’t like the crowds that with live music, and I’m not driving 4 hours to eat barbeque.”
“Don’t you want to go to Europe and see the cradle of civilization?”
“Mesopotamia is the cradle of civilization.”
“Well, whatever!”
“Don’t ‘whatever’ me. You don’t even know why you want to go. You just want me to waste time and money.”

Actually, I only thought that last line. Truthfully, I’m not averse to travelling, but he’s not an easy travel companion. He’s the type who hulks out whenever any sort of inconvenience arises. That aside, we would have that exchange just about every phone call.

When he gave up on that, he started presuming that I would eventually move to Florida and live next to him. He’d talk about buying some land on some island called Sanibel and building a place.

”…and then in a few years, you could move down here.”
“[sighs with exasperation] I don’t want to move to Florida, David.”
“Why not?”
“[For the same reason I told you last week] Because it’s hot.”
“But it’s really nice in the winter.”
“I don’t care if it’s nice in the winter, it’s hot the rest of the year, and besides that, ya’ll get hurricanes.”
“But when a Hurricane comes, you can just leave.”
“I don’t want to have to pause my life, flee the state, and worry about my home being destroyed or my cats getting killed!”

Again, we’d have that conversation every stinkin’ week. When he started offering unsolicited advice on my romantic relationships, I told him it wasn’t his business, and he pitched a fit, hung up the phone, and hasn’t called me since.

He also needs better phone etiquette. Whenever we’d talk, at some point he start doing something loud usually while he had me on speaker phone. He’d start putting up his dishes or he’d be walking to dinner, and the noise of the wind or the plates clacking together would either make him impossible to hear. Either that or I’d have to turn the volume up to a level that hurts my ears.

My sister and I called our cousin, Marla, to get an update on him a few days after Christmas. He and her are really close, though she lives in Atlanta, so she can’t give him the kind of in person friendship he needs. Apparently, in his version, I got mad at him and refused to answer his calls. I can’t believe after he antagonized me for the first 12 years of my life, he can’t take being told respect my privacy. What a butt!

If I can switch to a more empathetic mode, he’s also really struggling with being single. He was never the kind of guy who ever had trouble finding girlfriends, but in his mid-forties, he he doesn’t much care for his options. He complains that they all have “kids, pets, stupid tattoos, and stupid names.” I kind of wish he was talking to me so I could give him some perspective. I mean, yeah, the women in their 40’s likely have lived some life. However, if they have children, they’re probably closed to being grown, so the works been done. If you don’t like animals, I don’t really know what to say, but they usually have pets to indulge in their affectionate side. Would you really want to be with a woman who lacks that? I’m really at a loss for the whole tattoos and stupid names criteria. I’m not a tattoo person. I neither have them, nor care for them, but as long as they’re somewhat discreet and tasteful, I don’t mind, and if you’re complaining about someone’s name, you’re probably just looking for reasons to disqualify someone.

His comments make me recall a sermon I listened to years go. The preacher posed the question, “Are you the person you’re looking for is looking for.” Right now, my brother is self medicating his depression with alcohol and marijuana. If he does find an attractive woman with no kids, not pets, no tattoos, and a convention name, is she going to be interested in him with all his baggage? Secondly, even if he does find someone who checks all his boxes, there’s going to be something about her that requires him to compromise or be a bit more gracious. She might be bad with money or be really messy or like trashy reality TV shows. Thirdly, even if he does find his ideal woman who wants to be with him, you can’t fill that hole in your soul with another, flawed, fallible, person. Finally, even if she did, eventually she’ll pass away, and if she does so before he dies, he’ll find himself in the same place of misery and depression our dad lived in for the final decade of his life.