Family ties

Hunh. I don't have a single icon for a "warm and sleepy" sort of mood. I'll have to see about rectifying that. But the balloons will do for now, because I'm actually kind of happy too.

My brother made it in Monday night, and to be honest, my first reaction on seeing him was a double-take. It's been so long since I've seen him, I'm just not used to seeing his face on a six-foot-tall wiry muscled frame. Also, it amuses me how much more he looks like our father; growing up I was always the one who resembled our father and he our mother, at least in facial features. But he definitely got our father's height and prominent nose, and recently I've noticed that I have our mother's hips and bone structure around the eyes. Weird, how things change.

I'm also rather more optimistic about the state of our relationship. I'm sure that some of it is just that we're both older and more mature, and I'm sure it helps that he's a lot more stable financially and employment-wise than he used to be, but we seem to get on a lot better in person than over IM. A good chunk of that is probably being able to perceive things like body language and tone of voice, too. But we've spent two days and something like a combined eight hours in vehicles together, and haven't hit any major points of argument. Maybe we're both just better at letting things pass than we used to be, too.

One of the things that makes me the happiest, though? I know I've mentioned here before that he was a really sweet and kind and quiet kid growing up, and that those traits made his childhood extremely difficult, because our culture isn't particularly encouraging of sweet and kind little boys, and having two very strong an opinionated women and no real father figure in his immediate family left him a bit left out. It's made him very aggressive about his identity (our mother jokes that he became a firebreather because it was the only way anyone would pay attention to him), and also very sarcastic and generally protective of himself, and for a long time I've worried that the sweet and kind side of him was pretty much gone. But last night, he was dyeing my hair (I've wanted to do it up some funky color for a while now, and he regularly dyes his crimson, so I asked him to help me with mine), and he was so incredibly gentle. I don't really know how to describe the reaction I had, just...it was like having my brother back again, instead of getting to know a complete stranger I just happen to share some genetics with.

So...yeah. I'm glad he came, and we're having a pretty good time. And I hope this can be the beginning of a better relationship than we ever had as kids.

Family ties

Hunh. I don't have a single icon for a "warm and sleepy" sort of mood. I'll have to see about rectifying that. But the balloons will do for now, because I'm actually kind of happy too.

My brother made it in Monday night, and to be honest, my first reaction on seeing him was a double-take. It's been so long since I've seen him, I'm just not used to seeing his face on a six-foot-tall wiry muscled frame. Also, it amuses me how much more he looks like our father; growing up I was always the one who resembled our father and he our mother, at least in facial features. But he definitely got our father's height and prominent nose, and recently I've noticed that I have our mother's hips and bone structure around the eyes. Weird, how things change.

I'm also rather more optimistic about the state of our relationship. I'm sure that some of it is just that we're both older and more mature, and I'm sure it helps that he's a lot more stable financially and employment-wise than he used to be, but we seem to get on a lot better in person than over IM. A good chunk of that is probably being able to perceive things like body language and tone of voice, too. But we've spent two days and something like a combined eight hours in vehicles together, and haven't hit any major points of argument. Maybe we're both just better at letting things pass than we used to be, too.

One of the things that makes me the happiest, though? I know I've mentioned here before that he was a really sweet and kind and quiet kid growing up, and that those traits made his childhood extremely difficult, because our culture isn't particularly encouraging of sweet and kind little boys, and having two very strong an opinionated women and no real father figure in his immediate family left him a bit left out. It's made him very aggressive about his identity (our mother jokes that he became a firebreather because it was the only way anyone would pay attention to him), and also very sarcastic and generally protective of himself, and for a long time I've worried that the sweet and kind side of him was pretty much gone. But last night, he was dyeing my hair (I've wanted to do it up some funky color for a while now, and he regularly dyes his crimson, so I asked him to help me with mine), and he was so incredibly gentle. I don't really know how to describe the reaction I had, just...it was like having my brother back again, instead of getting to know a complete stranger I just happen to share some genetics with.

So...yeah. I'm glad he came, and we're having a pretty good time. And I hope this can be the beginning of a better relationship than we ever had as kids.