Basking In Bravado

When a text message exchange with my brother ended with a loud bang last Tuesday, I was certain of just who to blame.

Him.

The fraught issue we’d been discussing had been whether, as executor of an elderly relative’s modest estate, I was properly handling the distribution of a token sum of money to each of my siblings. Jake, a strong-willed brother whom I very much loved, and with whom, despite our different temperaments, I’d always been close, had peppered me with questions that really felt like insults in disguise; he couldn’t—or wasn’t willing to—hear even one word I offered in my own defense. So, I called him out on his veiled and unwarranted criticism. At least, that’s the way it seemed to me.

But, predictably enough, he’d taken offense––particularly when I’d accused him of “stirring the pot” as a way of creating unnecessary discord between all of my six brothers and sisters. And with this dig, our “conversation” disintegrated into an outright argument. After we had signed off with anger, I told myself that it didn’t matter anyway. He was wrong. End of story.

Except, of course, this wasn’t anywhere near “the end:” our interaction would continue to trouble me. Over the ensuing week, I wasn’t able to let it go.

I needed some peace, I realized at last, and so, on Friday afternoon, I slumped into an Adirondack chair in the backyard to think things over. “He’s so sanctimonious!” I huffed to myself. “And talk about someone who always needs to have the last word! Isn’t that just more proof of his insecurity?” I added with a sniff of disdain.

I shook my head at this point, pleased that I had not gone silent––my ordinary refuge when having a dust up with a sib. In fact, I took particular pride in not having flinched when Jake kept lobbing one remonstrance after another in my direction. He thought he could get away with acting the bully, the voice in my mind pressed, but you sure showed him!

I watched a flock of crows squabbling with each other while perched on the power line that stretched high across my garden and mulled over what I saw as my only two choices: to act magnanimous and grant my brother a full pardon; or to opt for the “mean girl” play and whip out my “you are dead to me” list from my back pocket, placing his name at the top.

In psychology-speak, we might define such an impulse as evidence of a temporary regression to an earlier stage of emotional development. In simpler terms, however, most of us would recognize this phenomenon as “choosing to behave like a ten year old.”

Wrapped as I was in my own blanket of conceit, I had quickly lost my perspective. It hadn’t even occurred to me, for instance, that I’d reacted to my brother’s slight with a thoroughly predictable and unfair reaction. Perhaps if it had, I might have then been able to declare our snarky exchange as an unfortunate  “kerfuffle” rather than as the potential relationship killer I had labeled it in my mind. And so I tried to distract myself with the sound of the scolds coming from the birds overhead.

Three days later, however, I began to ponder the situation differently. It was Monday afternoon, exactly a week following our argument. I was still sitting in my car after running some errands, and hadn’t yet turned the engine off. I was thinking about other things. I scrolled through the numerous texts on my cell to see whether there were any that I had inadvertently missed.

It was then that I admitted to myself that because all of them had long since been answered, I was only searching through the senders as an excuse: I wanted to see if Jake had cracked open a door through which we could restore the good connection we’d enjoyed for over fifty years. How hard I was hoping that he had. Yet, it still seemed to me that the onus to do so lay with him.

By the next day, my hope to speak with him brought clarity. I had been basking in a bravado created by a defensive anger—a way to ward off the hurt I’d felt when this brother had intimated that I’d acted in bad faith. Why hadn’t I been able to peg my part in all this, sooner? I wondered. Had my accusation that he’d meant to stir up trouble so that other family members might turn against one another even been true?

Chagrin and remorse overcame me. I’d made the mistake so many of us do when we are slow to realize that our anger has been “triggered” by a simple conversation––or why this should be so. Due to our lack of insight, we are quick to fire off a rejoinder.

It was only then that I began considering Jake’s texts in a different light. I now saw that his “comments,” which had felt like “digs” at the time, were not those of an adult brother challenging his adult sister. Instead I had morphed into the ten-year old kid I’d once been: an anxious young girl who remembered—and then repressed—the ways she had been chastised by a critical mother, often quite brutally, for daring to have an opinion of her own. Jeez, isn’t it long past time to let of all that go? Somehow this interpretation—that I still had unresolved “Mommy issues”––no longer seemed on point. At least not as the entire explanation.

No, I reminded myself, I had made strides in putting this painful part of my past to rest, and I had also been able to gain a more healing perspective about my relationship with Mom. A different thought emerged then, one that seemed more close to the truth in this case: Like so many of us who feel exhausted by the winds of political and cultural strife, of the fears created by the pandemic, of the increasing fear of gun violence, and of countries at war, my bandwidth for managing stress had narrowed significantly in recent months. I’d become increasingly prone to feeling overwhelmed by heated discussions: Whereas I had once considered myself remarkably resilient, I was no longer sure that this was true of me.

As I pondered all this, I decided to phone Jake. I would try, using conciliatory language, to change the way in which our communication was trending. My plan developed as I dialed: I would tell him that I was sorry for my part in our clash and that I wished to make amends. However, my effort went directly to his voice mailbox. With anxiety, I left my apology and asked him to call back.

Two days passed in silence, days that were shaped by thoughts of how, or even if, Jake would respond. Nevertheless, I used this time as an opportunity for more reflection, on how complicated sibling connections could become.

While dropping some shirts at the cleaners the following morning, I reminded myself that sibling bonds constitute, for most of us at least, the longest and most enduring relationships of our lives, rivaled only by those with our spouses and our children. It is critical to maintain them—except, of course, when they harm one’s well-being, whether physically or emotionally. Additionally, it occurred to me that the importance of such emotional connections may be even more salient as we age––when increased concerns about loneliness, social isolation, and loss often become overwhelming. As I headed toward home, the word loss echoed in my mind. I knew then, with certainty, that I didn’t want to risk losing my relationships with any of my sibs.

Later, while admiring the bee balms in my yard that had just come into bloom, my cell phone rang. Jake’s name popped up on the screen. “Hi, Terry!” he exclaimed, the tone in his voice warm and engaging. What followed was a conversation wherein we were both able to admit that we didn’t want to waste time harboring petty grievances. Which, of course, made perfect sense. We are no longer young, after all, and the clock continues to move forward. I felt a rush of love, and knew that he did as well.

After we said our goodbyes, which concluded with a promise to get together when he and his family were next in town, I took a deep breath and felt better than I had in more than a week. Instead of trading barbs, my brother and I had chosen tenderness. Together, we’d reset our relationship. And as I walked toward the back door of my home, I knew, with absolute conviction, who was the most grateful for our swap of self-righteousness for insight.

Me.