One of life's greatest joys is family. One of life's greatest frustrations is family. One of life's greatest enjoyments is family.... I think you get the picture.
During my trip back to Illinois to publicize my book, GROWING UP DOUGHNUT, I had the pleasure to stay with my brother Jim in the tiny hamlet of New Salem, IL. Jim is a few years older than I am, and, he would say, wiser. Me? I got the looks in the family jeans.(the misuse is intentional)
During the course of our visit, my brother Jim seemed to me to have picked a bit of a compulsive behavior. Maybe it is his advanced age (He is, after all older than I.), or maybe he has always been this way and I never noticed. He has to have things just so, and he has become a creature of habit. For instance, I first recognized this problem when I was in the bathroom weighing myself and my luggage for the return trip. After I had concluded the exercise, I put the scales back where I thought they were. Jim immediately moved them 1/4 inch closer to the wall. He said that he had, "calculated the required space needed to look over his stomach and see the numbers..." Apparently being a little too far away might have made him weigh more.
In the "having things just so" file...When he drives, he has to have the passenger visor at just the right angle, or it makes him feel out of sorts when he drives. When he mows, he makes sure that his lines are straight. Me? I have to worry about whether my rocks get raked just right in my desert lawn.
All this came to a head when we were watching The Big Bang Theory. I realized that Jim, who is highly intelligent, had traits similar to those of Sheldon. So, I have taken to calling him Sheldon. I wonder, does this make me Leonard, Raj, or Walowitz? (Jim might say my actions resemble Walowitz's mom.)
Jim made an astounding observation when we were traveling the back roads of Pike County looking for deer during my stay. ( I have to say, for a county that boasts that it "harvests" 10,000 deer a year, I saw only 4...they were in Calhoun County, not Pike. Do deer know about this harvest?) The observation was this... it is amazing that two rather large guys from such a small mother could be so vastly different. He is a small town guy who likes to live in relative seclusion without all the hubbub of people. I, on the other hand, have migrated to the big city and now like the sights and sounds and interactions I have with people on a daily basis.
He is probably right. We are vastly different. But we still have one thing in common that I never told him. That is...when he is not around, I miss him.
Keep mowing Sheldon, and make sure your lines are straight.
Doughnut
I thought I raised both my daughters the same, but one ended up a cosmopolitan hipster on the left coast and the other became Annie Oakley. They love and miss each other, too. I don't think it's so unusual. When you spend your early years in close quarters with someone, it's hard to break the bond even if you don't agree on many things.
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