Unborn, Undying

These past few days have just brought to mind how many unresolved issues I have with my brother, and perhaps with all my siblings. I suppose that this would naturally be the case considering that they are all much older than I am, and that they were rarely home when I was growing up. Sometimes I feel closer to my friends than I do to my own flesh and blood. That's an odd feeling for a Kenyan; I mean, your family should be closer and dearer to you than life itself, and yet I feel so distant from them. It does not help that my brother has to take the "I'm older than you so you better do what I tell you" attitude with me, because it just makes the gap between us seem all the larger. Does he really know so little about me that he thinks that kind of attitude will get me to listen to his advice? Right or wrong, I feel very patronised when he makes comments like that, when I confront him he tells me that he's just looking out for my best interests....Does that mean I have to put up with being treated like a 9 year old?

That's how old I was when he left for Canada back in 1990, he was a stranger then, and he is a stranger now. He calls me up in Buffalo, and over my protestations and attempts at explanations orders me to demand of my fave professor that she find me a job/graduate school/manna from heaven, like it was her fault in the first place that I did not get funding from the graduate schools I applied to. By what logic does she now become responsible? What "duties" to me has she somehow shirked that I should chide her like a scullery maid who scratched the Bedford crystal? Sheeeshh..is this how he behaves with other people on a day-to-day basis? No wonder he's been single all this time! No sense of give and take with this man..it's all capitalist exchange value...gah! He just drives me nuts sometimes...

And then my poor parents are just stuck in the middle, they of course follow his advice because he's been in the US the longest of any of us, and I do love and respect them so much so when they take his side I'm torn about what to do. I want to give my brother the finger and say that I'm going to do what I think is best (and I've not been sitting with my thumbs up my arse while all this has been going on thankee very much), but on the other hand I still want to follow my parent's advice....it's like going through puberty all over again..

I've always suspected I have late onset pubertal rebellion against authority syndrome and here it is...I mean, Ihad no reason to really rebel back home because my parent always treated me like an adult: if I respected them they gave me respect back it was as simple as that, and I love them for it. So why rebel against that? My brother on the other hand represents everything that a person could rebel against: domineering authority, patronisation, lack of respect and plain old fuddyduddy-ness (someone tell me they've heard 'fuddyduddy' before).

Here comes my rebellion 7 years late. Whenever my brother begins to give me a laundry list of do this's and do that's, I have to fight the urge to yell "Screw you!!" into the phone and hang up. I think he really sees me a child and I cannot stand (!!!!!) that, it irks me to the core that he of all people should be treating me this way at this point in my life and boy I wish I could tell him this to his face...

We went through the same thing back in 2001 when he snooped around and outed me, somehow the conversation that was very difficult for me to initiate with him (for obvious reasons) got hijacked by this in loco parentis persona that I can hear come over him over a phone line...it's bizarre how I can hear his persona literally change right before my ears (?)...

Why can't we all just get along? Aiyaiyai, all this drama...

posted by WM @ 16:58