Had a big fight with my brother. Sadly he's going back to France on Monday to help my Dad and, well, he has nowhere else to go. He's been with me for a couple of months now not including the week of Christmas. I love him to bits but we're different people despite being very similar in ways.
We both said some nasty things after an atmosphere that had probably grown all week but became unavoidable in the last few days. Nasty but honest. We both had issues with each others company and those issues really came from a good place: concern about the paths we're taking. Nasty but perhaps dishonest...it's difficult to say whether you say something during an argument because you know it's hurtful or because it's true. No smoke without fire.
What's important is that we've settled it like gentlemen. Hugged it out, talked about life, walked half an hour and back to the nearest Wetherspoons, talked more, took some bottles home, smoked a joint, drank bottles, ate MM's (crispy) and watched
Lost in Translation.
Sometimes with a personal relationship it grows stronger when you fix it after a break. Me and my brother could have had these kind of life discussions without fighting but in a way I'm almost glad it happened, despite almost ruining our relationship days before he flies away for six months. A quarrel can bring things to the surface you might not touch otherwise, and addressing them directly is like a hard reset, or like loading a save from a good position, but without losing your progress...
I let him know a few things he long suspected as well; I haven't really had a real relationship since my teens and it just feels like a big hole in my life. It hurts because I feel like I have so much to give... but I just can't find a recipient. I'm not sure what I've done wrong besides having far less confidence in romance than I do in banter... but it's this sort of hole that makes a 24 year old feel like he's barely lived. I want to have more under my belt by the time I'm thirty, to have more practical knowledge than I do now, to be able to provide. I think this is partly to do with my Dad, who's a great literary influence having worked for various newspapers and been a correspondent during the Vietnam war...but he can't change a lightbulb, you know?. My brother feels the same; he talks about his friends on the Isle of Harris as almost surrogate fathers who taught him how to sail, how to tie a good knot and so on, then trusted him to do it while they were out at sea.
I don't know.
I live in a small but convenient town and all my long friends are spreading out and disappearing, following jobs and the reality is that, having met many of you, I have more friends here than anywhere else. Yet I'm still cagey about revealing this to friends and family. My brother knows. Recently I let my best friend know. One of the times I posted in the last week (or was it before?) about getting high and watching
The Two Towers... I let my best friend know the same night. I'd built up this wall of shame and embarrassment about it... there's a kind of stigma attached to having more close friends on the internet than you do in real life. The stigma still makes me red faced and reluctant to talk about something as ridiculous as my interest in gaming to my parents. I don't know why. I should have more faith in my own convictions. The strongest message I'd ever tell my kids if I was to have any (I want to but later in life after I've learned a few things) would be: life is too short to hold onto all the embarrassment... when you figure out who you are live that life the way you picture it, never apologise for who you are, what you do or what you like.
I'll miss my brother when he goes. I'm not just misty eyed about him leaving, the last few days I've had a lot of aspirational fantasies float before my eyes. When tickled by an idea, I can really disappear inside my mind and just think of something lovely. If I was ever to win the lottery for example, the very next thing I'd do after looking after my family, giving my mother somewhere nice to live, the same for myself and my brother and father, would be to get myself some suits/shirts/skiis and take you all on a holiday.
This is not the post of somebody who has experienced a tragedy, just a guy tickling his cloud as he figures out who he is and what he wants.
I feel like I've shared too much but I don't want to delete.
I guess now you know that:
Persona makes me happy happy
Gin and Tonic makes me bitter
Bryan Ferry makes me reflective and sad.
For reference;
Bryan Ferry & Roxy Music - More Than This
EDIT
Sorry, this was an an uncharacteristically sad post. I'll keep doing my acerbic comedy thing but sometimes you just have to release.
