Brother

Tonight we are home alone -- just us.  There is no company scheduled to arrive anytime soon. 

My brother left this morning, boarding a plane back to his home in Dallas after spending the last 4 days with our family.

It was an interesting visit. 

H is younger than I am by 16 months.  He was born three months premature in 1956, weighing just 2 lbs., 6 ozs.  His birth precipitated the first significant emotional trauma of my life, as my parents, overwhelmed by the arrival of their very sick and very tiny little son dropped me off with neighbors -- and left me there for a good part of the next six months.

H survived, and so did I.  We grew, inside our very difficult family, into fast friends and loyal companions.  Over the years, we shared an awful lot, and we always had each others' backs.  I played his protector through our growing up years, and he spent hours and hours listening to my wild-eyed dreams, grounding me with his stolid, steady, stable German temperament.  We were a pair, even after the birth of two more younger brothers.  The expansion of our family never shook the bond that held H and I in a tight orbit around each other. 

Even after he moved to Dallas, we stayed in touch, keeping each other close across the miles.

When I moved away, embarking on my new life here, H was shocked, confused, unsettled.  He tried to not judge, but my choices flew in the face of everything he understood and believed about relationships and family.  My mother (The Princess Pat) was more than willing to wind him up into her ravings on the subject, and H and I grew apart into a strained and pained estrangement.  We never actually broke off our contact with one another, but the time lengthened between phone calls, and we struggled to know what to say to each other. 

Every now and then, H would talk, vaguely, about coming to visit me here, but it never actually came to pass.  Some of that was related to economic realities, but a good part of it was due to his ambivalence -- serious approach avoidance.  It made me sad,  but there wasn't a lot I could do or say.

Then.  A few months ago, he started talking in earnest about coming to visit.  Really!  And, he finally made it happen, arriving last Sunday afternoon.  Looking forward to his visit, I was excited, but also worried.  It has been nine years since H and I were together.  How, I wondered, would he be?  With me?  With Master and T?  With us as a family?  He knows a bit about our poly lifestyle, but almost nothing about our power-exchange relationship.  We've talked very little about it over all these years.  I was nervous. 

In the end, the visit was grand.  H came, met Master and T, lived here with us -- adapting to our patterns and routines.  We played tourist, enjoyed some local sight-seeing, talked a lot, got accquainted and re-accquainted.  It was fun.  He was surprised, I think, by the absolute sense of "normal" that prevails around our household, and while he still has to reach a bit to really grasp the nature of our lives together, he seemed to find it all good.  That feels good.

The truth is that I didn't need the approval of my kid brother.  My life doesn't need anyone to approve.  On the other hand, I don't have much family left.  I've cut my ties, or had them cut for me, and sometimes it is painfully clear how alone I am in the world.  Outside of our little household, apart from my two grown children, there is no one left.  Except now there is H. 

He doesn't approve or disapprove.  He simply accepts, and that feels important to me.

He's home tonight; back with his dogs and his bird and his bunny rabbit.  I'm glad he came.  I hope he can come back again in time.  I will miss him. 

swan