It has come to my attention that some of my less-than-careful posting about ex gf’s has made me look like a typical dude who can’t take care of his own shit, and needs a woman to take care of him. It was put to me in more delicate, and less annoyingly heteronormative terms.
The posts in question are here and here. It would take way too long, so I’m not going to try to defend or explain. I will say that they are stories completely without a context. And that in most all relationships I have been in, I am always the caretaker. I will admit to a mamma’s-boy binge here and there (going back to Portland for the Interferon and being taken care of,) but I am so much more my mother, than a mamma’s boy. I am a total Jewish Mother, feeding, and caring for, and supporting, and making sure people go to the doctor, and nagging them when they don’t. I specialize in force feedings, nagging and guilt trips.
And by force feedings, I mean the kind where someone is coming off of food poisoning, or a really bad night out, and has not drank water for a while, and has not eaten for even longer. I am a specialist at coaxing them into drinking some water, then switching to juice, and then to a smoothie, and then to toast, and then my job is done. Don’t ask why I have such experience at this. Again, the story would take way to long. Let’s just say something vague like “past experience” or “history” or “my mother taught me well.”
So one of the most interesting challenges of the last *six months* (!) has been learning how to accept help, and ask for help.
I have always been a Jewish Mother of a big brother. Well, not always. For a while we fought terribly – I was an expert in verbal taunting, and I was still bigger and stronger than him. I am no longer bigger and stronger *and* he practices Taekwondo, though I am probably still a better verbal taunter, though he is a very very close second. After I left Middle School and grew out of that phase, I have always looked after my brother in one form or another. For a while it was a burden my parents gave me. Or rather, they begged me to take on. Because he pretty much refused to listen to them for a while there. I resisted for a while, and then it was just the way it was. We both gave in to our parents’ wills. School help, life help, help dealing with our parents, etc. I have even (and repeatedly) offered to make an appointment and pay for a proper hair cut; each time he turns me down.
The amazing thing about the last six months is that I have become the little brother. My brother is taking care of me, taking me to drs appointments, telling me what to do, bossing me around, nagging me about things I need to take care of. He is the dominant personality in a conversation, or situation more often than he would have been in the past. And he is doing the grocery shopping.
When we were all home, there were moments when x and KM and LK and P could glimpse moments of my childhood. In the way my dad showed them around the woodshop in the garage, or the way we would interact around the dinner table, or whatever. One time S and I and my Dad were debating something; I forget the details, but Stephen was coming out on top and was teasing me about it. So x called one out, saying “I just caught a vision of your childhood.” I told her “Yes, but in the version from our childhood, I was S and S was me.”
And now he is leaving. Leaving for the west coast to start a PhD. I will miss him. A lot.
I was sort of thinking about you and blondie and myself today while on a 3 hour train ride and I started to think about how for people like us, the hardest part of being sick/injured etc is probably the asking for help. I started to go through the list of times I had to depend on other people and how in some ways the asking/depending was the hardest and scariest part of the illness. . .
yeah, learning how to ask is so hard. i’m really afraid now that bro is leaving. tmrw morning 930 Jet Blue flight to San Diego. lots of ppl have offered, but it is hard to find ways for them to help. meh, this isnt making that much sense.