Family Tides

You know what’s cool? Getting drunk on a Saturday night and having nobody better to drunken text at 1:03 am than your 41 year old brother. Especially when the text reads: “I don’t know about this Lilith fair thang, I don’t do that.” Last drunken text a few weeks back read, “RATFINK DIARIES!,” and prior to that, “Pavi says thanks for forgetting your kid sister’s birthday!”, which received replies of, “Don’t you have anyone else you can drunk text instead of me?” and “Who’s Pavi?” I’m sure he finds me absolutely as hilarious as I find myself 9-pbr’s in. Gets me, thinks I’m hip, etc. Can’t wait to show him the new black cat skull and cross bones tattoo I’m rocking on my left foot. I’m sure he’ll be proud to call me his lil’ sis then, brag to all his hotshot vets about my ink when he takes them golfing on schmoozey business trips.

Me: I’m 26 years old, live in a 2 bedroom apartment in a quaint neighborhood in Chicago called Lincoln Square, been in the city going on 3.5 years now. Crazy, to think about really. I’m from a small ass Wisconsin town near the border of Illinois called Argyle, yes like the socks. I graduated with a class of around 30 kids, and know 89% of the town on a first named basis, still to this day being 8 years removed. I grew up kind of like an only child, the brother I mention above is half, we have a 15 year age gap, he my senior—but I hate telling people he’s “half,” because really he and I are blood, and there’s no halving that. He has always been the closest thing I’ve had growing up to refer to as a father figure, and even though he can be a total dork at times, he’s also been a valuable mentor to me, both as a professional but also as a human being. He proved to me that it takes a hell of a lot more than food stamps and a limited culture upbringing to hold you back from going after what’s yours and making it happen.

We both grew up without any other siblings, raised in a “single” parent household, by our mother. Mom always had a variety of boyfriends, more so when Jamie was growing up than me, (there was just one in my childhood and it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere anytime soon). But both Jamie and I grew up without a “dad,” or even meeting who the appropriate sperm donors were, for that matter. I bet it was harder for him, since he’s a guy and all, I wonder what it would have been like sometimes, if I had been raised by a father, without a mother. If the gender swap really would affect who I am today. . . Actually, that’s a lie. Typing that out right now is the first time I ever thought about what it would be like to not have mom, but to have some strange man called “father” raising me instead. Weird. It must have been even stranger for Jamie growing up as a kid with just a mom than me.

Anyway, Jamie grew up in the 70’s and 80’s, where I was more of an 80’s, 90’s blend. Where I had slap bracelets and paint splatter jumpers, he rocked the big hair and lived in the whole hippie peace revolution. Mom even had a blonde afro at one point—that had to have been traumatizing to witness as a 10-year old kid. There’s a generation gap, to say the least. He doesn’t understand my tattoos. I don’t get his golf obsession. I get pumped up by Kanye West, he turns to Inxs.

Jamie now lives in the suburbs of Chicago, about a 45 minute to an hour drive away from my neighborhood. He has a pretty fantastic wife and three incredibly intelligent, strong minded and awesome kids—2 daughters and one son. He managed to overcome some pretty hardcore setbacks, coming from where we did and making it to where he is now, and I look to him whenever I begin to doubt where I’m heading with my own life. I see him, with his family and success and think; ok if he did it I can too. And really, we have mom to thank for that ultimately. While she may not have led the most socially acceptable lifestyle (what you didn’t grow up associating the skunk odor of marijuana with “tobacco,” “these are hand rolled cigarettes, Jodi, I don’t care what you learned in D.A.R.E”; or find moms mystery straws, full of white powdery residue in her toiletry bag looking for makeup to play dress-up in “Mom why do you have cut up McDonald’s straws?”?), she did instill values in us, believe it or not. Told us college was not an option, but a necessity. Encouraged our dreams, told us we could do and be anything we set our minds to. Told us we were the very bestest, despite the taunting of classmates “DOUBLE PANE SOUNDPROOF”—fuck off, jerks, these are government funded glasses, not your trendy ass wireframes.

While we may not have had enough money to own a properly operating automobile (hellllllo thumb tacked/stapled ceiling upholstery, go-kart mufflerville, rusty eyesore deluxe), or send us to school in the hip new fashions (I rocked the bib overall look 3 years too late) and maybe the ceilings in our porches were constantly rotting (don’t walk on the balcony, you’ll fall through!), my mom did manage to make sure Santa still visited every year and got us “the goods.” I’ll never forget the years I got a super Nintendo with Aladdin. I’m pretty sure Jamie had something to do with making that happen too, (thanks bro). Or the year I got the cowgirl Barbie, complete with her horse. “Don’t look at quantity, Jodi,” they’d tell me, as I’d be in mid-hissy fit outside of Wal-Mart, upset with ONLY one toy, versus two, “Look at quality.” I didn’t get it then, but I get it now. I didn’t play with no generic dolls, I had Barbies (fuck you Jem, with your oversized flat feet)—with the official accessories—while we may not have had it made ourselves, my damned dolls were living in luxury, complete with the hotel elevator, Ferrari, evening gowns and baby grand piano (which actually played real music – up until I chucked it at a wall in a frantic fury when forced into naptime—mom wasn’t too thrilled with me that day).

I am always curious about my brother. What his childhood was like. I’ve asked him questions and he’s told me some stories. Sometimes in long car rides, sometimes over a corona in hushed tones in his dimly lit kitchen, hours after the rest of the family had retired for the night. I’ve grown to love these conversations with my brother, spending one-on-one time with him and getting to know who he is as an individual. You love your family, you kind of have to. But do you ever really get to know them? Or do you just blindly accept them as your kin and get on with it? Jamie and I never really had much of a relationship before, since I was the equivalent to a hyperactive googly eyed Tasmanian devil, while he was more or less in college or already in adult hood. He got married at my age, 26, and had his first child at age 30; I was only 12 and 15 then. We’ve always been on different planes in life. Now I’m 26, and while I don’t see marriage or motherhood in my immediate future, I have (albeit against my rebellious will) entered corporate America as a young professional. We can talk business. I get what he’s talking about now, and I think he gets what I’m blabbering about more so than some of my closest friends or our mom. (Pivot charts! Business rules! Direct reports!)

I respect him more than I think I respect anyone else I know, even if he can piss me off sometimes (Me, age 19; him, age 33; “Jodi the more you continue to mutilate your body (my new star and moon tattoo on my foot), the more I feel distanced from you. You continue to push against the mainstream and I can’t connect with you. You’ll never get a professional job with all of this excess tattooing and I’m saying this for your own well-being.” Me: seveeeeerely angsty bitchass passive email to him telling him basically to fuck off. I still tease him about it to this day. I only wish my cutesy moon and star tattoo then was the badass cat skull and crossbones I’m rocking now. Oh, and I don’t think I need to remind him of my profession or salary despite my ‘mutilated skin’, either).

But really, I do hope he sees me as more than just his kid sister and is enjoying getting to know me as much as I do him. I try to force new music on him. I try to get him to open up and live a little more compulsively (but fail, time and time again—c’mon, Jame, you know you want to drive me to Milwaukee to see Bon Iver, you would realllly like it—I know it’s on a Sunday night and there’s work in the morning, but it’s for your birthday, live a little! Him – “I have a golf outing.”) He tries to get me to read boring books (Conrad, really? Gimme Fitzgerald or Huxley anyday, but spare me the Conrad please) and lure me into the burbs on the weekends (“It’d be sooo great to see you Jod, come up on the Fourth of July, you don’t have anything better going on as a single 20-something female in the city do you?” Bitch, please).

He’s the yin to my yang. We are different as can be. But one of my favorite photographs is the one and only family portrait we’ve ever posed in “professionally”. One of those K-mart type family photographers. My mom is rocking some 80s pinstriped blouse, smiling without showing her teeth. Jame’s an overexcited victim of the 80’s, wearing this geeky grey striped button up number, poofy hair in the back. I’m thrilled as a button, wrapped up in a red velvety jumper, short crazy hair, smiling ear to ear, probably about 4 or so years old. It’s a good one. Reminds me whenever life throws me a curveball that no matter what, I’ve got my mom and my big bro to back me up.

Shit may go sour from time to time, but I know they’ll still do what they can to support me, as me them. Tides have changed, where now it’s Jame and I stepping into the supportive roles for mom as she gets older, but we’re still a family—the three of us. Even though Jamie once sighed to me when I was pressuring him into some situation or another “Jodi I have my own family now,” (followed by another bitchass chew out email – my brother isn’t known to think fully before words escape his mouth), he’s my broseph. I do everything in my ability to lead by example and be the best Aunt I can be to his children, and consider them my own. Friends will hear me referring to “my kids,” and stop me to correct, “nieces/nephews,” but whatever. I see my brother in each one of their faces—(unfortunately for Ian, he is definitely not the milkman’s son), but I’m proud of them. I’m proud of my brother. I’m proud of my family. My mom just bought her first house last year. She has calmed her lifestyle down substantially and enjoys the little things—gardening, canning vegetables, Law & Order re-runs, rounds of Scrabble followed with homemade bloody Mary’s (“Don’t forget the Absolut, Jod—“the goods,” not that Smirnoff crap,”).

I suppose even though I get bouts of lonely spells and freak out about all the big questions in life, I’m not doing too bad myself either. I’ve got most of my shit together, have a steady job, a kickass cat, some quality friends and a half decent head on my shoulders. I’ve got Momz and Jamez to thank for that—so thanks, fam, for making me who I am today and for keeping it real. I promise not to hurl any more baby grands at the wall come naptime.