Time to talk about my siblings, in order of age, starting with the oldest.

I didn’t really connect with my sister Anne at all when I was a kid. It seemed like we lived in different universes. I remember being a little scared of her because she could be pretty scary when she was mad, and well, she’s a redhead, so this was not exactly a rare occurrence. But I was never scared enough not to like her or anything. I liked her fine. She always seemed so full of life and confidence and energy to me when I was a kid. I admired her for that.

But to me, all that energy and vivacity made her kind of unapproachable. And to her, presumably, I was just an annoying little kid seven years younger than her who got underfoot a lot.

I just wanted to be included.

Later in life, when I was in junior high and she was in college, we finally found some common ground. Namely, we are both intellectual people who love to talk. I got into astrology and that gave us a starting point for discussion, and eventually we would talk politics, philosophy, religion, feminism, and so on.

That was mostly good, but sometimes we would end up in this dead end situation where we would start arguing about something and neither of us could stop. We were both, in our own ways, too damned stubborn for our own goods. She would just keep trying to win the argument, growing increasingly upset and angry, and clueless nerd I would not notice how overwrought she was becoming and just keep arguing.

She was growing hysterical, and I was still enjoying myself. I was such a dick.

And of course, the fact that I was remaining cool and calm and unassailable only made her even more upset, and so we would get into a pretty bad loop. She would accuse me of being stubborn and close-minded. I would ask her to prove it without just assuming that her arguments were so good that only a close-minded stubborn person could resist them. She would say I wasn’t listening to her. I would say “Yes, I am, you are saying…. ” and then repeat all her points back at her, then conclude “I just don’t agree with you. ” For bonus points, sometimes I would point that she’s not changing her mind or backing down either, so obviously there is equal proof of being stubborn for both of us.

And so forth and so on. Often my mother would become very upset to see her children fight like this, which I also barely noticed because again, I was enjoying myself. I love a good argument and I have nearly unlimited stamina for one, or so it seems. And this was the kind of mental stimulation I didn’t get in my life back then.

Eventually, though, I figured out that one of us had to be willing to just stop that shit before it started, and I was the only one I had control of, so it had to be me. I would just bow out and change the subject. Sometimes that seemed unfair to her, like I was denying her some kind of victory, but eventually we both figured out what was good for us.

After all, this was just casual, non-binding conversation between two people who loved each other. And in those situations, “being right” is far, far less important than the relationship between you.

And besides, actual conversational victory is extremely rare, despite what our crazy dominance hormones tell us. So the chances are, all the argument can do at that point is damage your relationship with the person, and hurt them as well.

So in a way, she taught me to get the hell over myself.

My sister Catherine and I were never all that close either, although she periodically took it upon myself to be my teacher. Looking back, it’s quite touching and adorable the way she would assume the role of the kindly, encouraging teacher when she tried to teach me one of the crafts she learned in the craft-crazed Seventies (another way the Seventies are back), or get me to read her school assigned reading with her, or teach me a song.

Like I said, this was fairly sporadic, and like a lot of things from the Seventies, it ended in the Eighties. But I still greatly appreciate her taking time with me like that, and thanks to her, if I really concentrate, I can still recite “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll and “Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost, just like she taught me.

Fun fact : many years after the afternoon where she taught me those poems, I got an assignment to memorize two poems (possibly the same assignment she got, from the exact same teahcher!).

Guess which two poems I chose? That’s right, the two I already had memorized.

That was a freebie.

Later on, when she was in high school, it was I, the little brother, who began to worry about her. She was always an overachiever, although of course I didn’t know the term at the time, and like a lot of folks of that ilk, she put incredibly amounts of pressure on herself and was absolutely terrified of failure.

So she would have these emotional breakdowns when it all got to be too much for her poor nervous system, and have crying jags and freakouts and other problems that made me genuinely worried for her.

And that only got worse when she went to college. I would try in my own way to help by encouraging her to relax and calm down, but keeners and coasters just don’t speak the same emotional language at all. So I was not much help to her.

You just cannot accomplish anything by telling someone who is freaking out to calm down. It is completely futile, and might even make the situation worse. I have enough experience of anxiety myself to know this and know it well.

I think the best that you can hope for is to be there for them when the anxiety wave crashes and they need someone to hold their hand and tell them everything will be okay.

That’s all from me for today, folks. Tomorrow : DAVE.