Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: paralysis

Related, But Not the Same

tatted up
My lotus blossom is on fiyah!

My brother dropped by the other night, and as always, I marveled that we’re related. I’m not a genetics expert, but I would think two people who’re related would have a few traits in common. He and I get along really well, but we could not be more different. By his own admission, he operates purely on logic. Or mostly, any way. I don’t think many people are 100% Dr. Spock, even if they think they are. He is very rational, though, so it’s easy for him to miss the subtext of what people are saying. I, on the other hand, skew heavily to the emotional side, although I can think rationally when I apply myself. My brother is extremely gregarious. To him, a stranger is just a friend he hasn’t met yet. To me, even my friends can feel like strangers at time. He can talk to people all day long. I get tired after about five minutes of human interaction. He loves to drive; I fucking hate it. He’s married with three wonderful children (one who’s now an official adult!), and I can only look at him in admiration and wonderment because I can’t imagine that life for myself. Nor, may I hasten to add, do I want to. I never wanted kids, and I never wanted to get married. Still. It leaves me out of many conversations because the vast majority of women my age are married and/or have kids.

My brother is a realtor. He’s very good at his job. He likes meeting new people and finding the perfect house for them. To me, that sounds like Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell. The one thing I had to help my brother with was how he emotionally connected with people. We role-played, and he practiced until he was markedly better at it. He likes to have three or four things to do every day. I consider it a job well done if I manage to do one thing a day. He’s better with numbers and computers while I swim in a sea of words. He once told me that he never regretted anything in his life. I stared at him, slack-jawed, unable to process what he’d said to me. Not regret anything? First of all, can anyone really say that?* I mean, not even getting the turkey on rye instead of the ham and cheddar? Secondly, I regret almost everything about my life. One of the reasons I have such a hard time making a decision is because I can always see the negatives about any/all of the choices. Even if it’s not conscious, I often see things as a lose-lose situation.

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