Dept. of Nerves
Monday, 28 September 2015 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaffy_rFamily Visits
I think I've mentioned that my little brother, the now-retired RCMP officer, is driving down to Chicago with a friend, bringing along a couple of pieces of furniture (my great great grandmother's china cabinet and a couple of chairs, plus a lot of things that will end up in the china cabinet) and some of my Nana's paintings. He takes off from Nova Scotia on Oct. 1 and will probably arrive in Chicago Oct. 3 or 4.
I've slowly been realizing, and talked about the realization yesterday with BB and FB, that I'm nervous about Mac coming to visit. I hurried up the replacement of the dining room floor (and I'll have pictures at some point, I promise) because I didn't want him to see the completely grotty dining room carpet. I'm looking around and wanting to clean our windows, and I'm wondering constantly how Mac - who has a huge three bedroom, two story house in a semi-rural area, decorated in "clean, spare" - is going to regard BB's and my crowded, dusty (but generally not dirty) 950-square-foot condo in a rough Chicago neighborhood.
Part of my nerves - which BB had been semi-seriously joshing at me about, possibly trying to make me realize that I was being irrational - stem from the fact that, while Mac is my younger brother, his life as a cop has given him a demeanor, a persona - terse, no-nonsense, unwilling to talk a lot about any issue - that makes me feel constantly wrong-footed, and like I'm the younger sibling. Put simply, my beloved brother, of whom I am eternally proud, has the superpower that all cops, good and bad, have: even when your'e innocent, being around a cop makes you feel as if you must have done something wrong.
Of course, I've done nothing wrong, except perhaps for living a rather different type of life than he would. But it's a lesson I have to learn over and over again. As FB reminded me yesterday, he's going to be in my court.
And the truth of the matter is, I don't think he disapproves of me in the least. I think, I think, that he thinks of me as his older sister. Whether he thinks of me as his wiser sister? Well, I'm not going to push my suspension of disbelief quite that far.
I think I've mentioned that my little brother, the now-retired RCMP officer, is driving down to Chicago with a friend, bringing along a couple of pieces of furniture (my great great grandmother's china cabinet and a couple of chairs, plus a lot of things that will end up in the china cabinet) and some of my Nana's paintings. He takes off from Nova Scotia on Oct. 1 and will probably arrive in Chicago Oct. 3 or 4.
I've slowly been realizing, and talked about the realization yesterday with BB and FB, that I'm nervous about Mac coming to visit. I hurried up the replacement of the dining room floor (and I'll have pictures at some point, I promise) because I didn't want him to see the completely grotty dining room carpet. I'm looking around and wanting to clean our windows, and I'm wondering constantly how Mac - who has a huge three bedroom, two story house in a semi-rural area, decorated in "clean, spare" - is going to regard BB's and my crowded, dusty (but generally not dirty) 950-square-foot condo in a rough Chicago neighborhood.
Part of my nerves - which BB had been semi-seriously joshing at me about, possibly trying to make me realize that I was being irrational - stem from the fact that, while Mac is my younger brother, his life as a cop has given him a demeanor, a persona - terse, no-nonsense, unwilling to talk a lot about any issue - that makes me feel constantly wrong-footed, and like I'm the younger sibling. Put simply, my beloved brother, of whom I am eternally proud, has the superpower that all cops, good and bad, have: even when your'e innocent, being around a cop makes you feel as if you must have done something wrong.
Of course, I've done nothing wrong, except perhaps for living a rather different type of life than he would. But it's a lesson I have to learn over and over again. As FB reminded me yesterday, he's going to be in my court.
And the truth of the matter is, I don't think he disapproves of me in the least. I think, I think, that he thinks of me as his older sister. Whether he thinks of me as his wiser sister? Well, I'm not going to push my suspension of disbelief quite that far.
