Expectations

As it happens in almost every relationship, my brother and I have our unwritten roles within our family. I hesitate to simplify this as a binary good child/bad child scenario because it's a bit more complicated than that. However, on the whole, our family story will prove that J has always been calmer, more patient, sunnier, happier (my parents still tell the story of our nightmarish trip up the California coastline when I was 8 months old, juxtaposed with J's contented gurgling throughout his infancy and toddler years).

Even as adults, the roles continue. J is happily married, estsblished in his career, owns his home, just started an MBA program, and has a child. I have the weight of rebellious teenage years, a disaster during my first year of college, a broken engagement, and a chaotic life in the city. He conforms, accepts, and carries on; I challenge, rage and push against the familiar. There is a great deal in freedom and constriction in the characters we have chosen/been assigned.

Knowing this history, it always surprises me when one of us steps out of our disposition. On our recent family vacation, J and i were standing in the ocean, talking. It was a clear, beautiful day. My SIL and The Peanut were happily playing on the beach nearby. All of a sudden, J scanned the horizon, then turned to me, and in all seriousness, asked what I would do if there was a tsunami. [Please note, we were not in a foreign locale where this was a possibility. We were in freakin' Delaware, probably the last place on earth in which a tsunami would occur.] He continued, detailing his plan if this should happen: that he would scoop up The Peanut and his wife and run for high land, or perhaps take shelter behind a tree.

And while he was talking, I remembered another sort of history - that my family used to sarcastically call J 'Little Darling' because he was always predicting doom and gloom. Drive over a bridge and he'd ponder its collapse. Take an elevator and he'd discuss the fragility of the cable wires holding the car. Go through a tunnel and, well, you know. He's always maintained that he would lose all of his hair by age 18 (something about male pattern baldness on my Mom's side of the family) and die of a heart attack at age 43 (the same age my Dad was when he almost died of heart disease). J honestly half-expects these tragedies to happen. It's the part of his personality that doesn't fit in with our ideas of him.

Back on the beach, J stopped talking, and looked at me expectantly. I laughed and dove into an oncoming wave.