Feeling: familial
Listening to: A Perfect Circle - The Noose
Reading/Watching: magazines and organizers and planning booklets. sheesh.

There are times I miss when my little brother and I used to tell each other fricking everything. Puppy and I were comrades on up until the end of my highschool years, because despite a four-year difference in age, we were both living lives innocent enough to be shared with a sibling (once hormones became involved, of course, certain boundaries were drawn out of necessity).

In the beginning of life, there wasn't much to say, since I was four and he hadn't mastered speech yet. I sang to him, since he was the only member of the family who was incapable of running away, and he got so used to it, he would complain (without any consonants involved) if I stopped.

Then he got older, and I would read books to him, usually the ones I was reading at the time. We had a grand old time, because I used different voices, and he was young enough still to think that being able to read meant you were smart. Then he turned five, started kindergarten, and became Boy Genius and all that jazz. But he still wanted to join in whatever Bear and I were doing, he still thought I was cool, he still wanted me to read to him.

I think it was right around when I left for college (and thus didn't live at home anymore) that we stopped talking about our lives on a daily basis. We tried catching up, but obviously, the age difference was finally becoming an issue. I couldn't really tell him everything anymore, and I'm guessing he edited at least 50% of his teenage-boy experiences out of the things he told me.

A few days ago, spending the night with extended family at our grandparents' house, Puppy and I spent several hours talking in a circle with some cousins and mon coeur. By the end of the night, my brother and I were talking to each other again on the level we used to reach as kids: completely laid-open, with flaws and heartaches included. It's been a very long time since he's sought advice from me, a very long time since he's told me what's really going on in his life, instead of the Christmas-card version.

It was incredible. And it only took about a six-pack (each) of Dos Equis and Smirnoff Twisted to get there. (Yes, yes, I allowed my nineteen-year-old brother get drunk with me. Oh, the horror. You wish you had a big sister as cool as me.)

As much as I loved talking to him, though, I really wish we could have been comfortable with each other sooner, enough to get there before we were both three (or seven) sheets to the wind. Perhaps this is how adulthood does it, though. Perhaps we're not allowed to be messy and scratched until alcohol takes the varnish off. But I still remember when we told each other everything, simply because we wanted to, and because we knew we could.

I wonder if he misses that sort of thing, too, whether he was waiting for the right time to bring up some of the things that were so easy to spill out, once our speech was sufficiently blurred. And I sure as hell hope we can keep that door open, always. I like being a real presence in each other's lives, not just an e-mail address and a gift at Christmas.

And if he's reading this now, I hope none of this is a revelation, and that he knew this already. I hope he knows that I'm always around to listen. You don't have to ply me with Smirnoff (especially when I'm the one buying it).

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