Last summer, my brother took me sailing on Lake Huron near where he lives. When Bob struggled to haul up the sail, his voice held an edge of panic. “Oh, oh, this isn’t good.” Panic that I instantly recognized because we both tend to catastrophize about things.
Of course we do. We grew up in the same family where problems were often denied, rarely solved. Later, drinking a beer in his back yard, we talked about this tendency—and other issues we’ve dragged with us from childhood.
“You were the boy they wanted,” I remind Bob. “You got better grades,” he says. We laugh about this stuff now, but old grudges and grievances have made it hard for us to be friends, have sometimes kept us estranged for months, years.
Then, we find our way back. Fragile and fraught as it is, I don’t want to lose this connection. I wouldn’t say we’re close, but there have been moments—once when my daughter almost died and Bob showed up at the hospital. Once when he was afraid to leave on a trip and called me.
Whatever we have, I’ll never have it with anyone else. Knowing Bob and I struggle with the same things makes the struggle less lonely. “All these years can pass,” he says, “but always you’re there.”