A Decade of Distance
This morning, I received a text from my brother hinting at something new on the horizon. I responded immediately, expressing my excitement and confidence that everything would work out.
After thirteen years apart, things feel like they are shifting again. He is moving into the next phase of his life just as I am moving into the next phase of mine. That’s simply our story — a decade of distance.
Image Courtesy of Ria Pai
The distance spanned miles between us at various family dinners over the years. Across the dining table, I watched him intently, mimicking his mannerisms, ordering a disgustingly fizzy Coke, and hoping he’d ask me to split whatever indulgent entree he thought sounded best. Most of the time, he merely offered narrowing glares and gestures indicating that, when we got home, he would beat me up or push me down or put me to bed playing Eminem’s Kill You as a lullaby. The epitome of a nurturing older brother.
Image Courtesy of Ria Pai
Very rarely, but every once in a while, silence filled the distance.
“I love you. But this can ruin your life if you let it. When you go to college, mommy and daddy won’t be there to help you.”
I sat quietly, at a loss for words. He was right and, more shockingly, he had noticed in the first place. When stories of mean girls and math tests are up against medical school and marriage, you begin refining the most childish parts of yourself to develop the maturity that makes ten years feel like a mere moment. You memorize all the diatomic elements at 6, learn to pour the perfect Guinness at 12, and discern when it might be better to stay silent than to speak, perhaps by 21.
My brother is loud and boisterous and sometimes irritatingly vain. He talks a lot. But his voice changes perceptibly when he is really saying something. Usually, it comes in the form of a dimly-lit conversation at 2 a.m. It’s something direct, observant, seemingly casual. And it means the world.
Love, he taught me, isn’t always soft or endearing. Sometimes, it’s actually really annoying. It can look like perception. It can look like precision. It can simply be knowing someone well enough to say the one thing that actually matters, at the times it matters the most.
Image Courtesy of Ria Pai
It had been an entire hour since we had crammed ourselves into the closet, waiting for my brother and his friend to find us. A game of hide and seek — their idea — had lost the “seek” element quite quickly.
When I was 7, I didn’t actually understand who the girl hiding beside me was, or who she would become. She was just my brother’s friend, and I was just overjoyed to hang around grown-ups. We would get coffee (or, in my case, a Vanilla Bean Frappuccino) and stroll through downtown areas, stopping to pet dogs and take pictures against colorful murals.
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A decade later, I mentioned all of this in their wedding speech. Speaking too quickly at some parts and pausing unnaturally at others, I cited a love with no distance; the kind I hoped to find someday. I told my new sister-in-law that her husband would, at times, be a complete idiot. But, usually, he would be willing to admit it.
“I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
Time and again, I have heard these words from him, but not from many others. Only when you see someone accept that kind of humility so easily do you realize how rare it is. There’s not much that can’t be fixed with five words, and, when it comes to love, putting some space between the idealized notion and the day-in-day-out reality is what creates endurance. Maybe it's right place, right time, or maybe it’s just going the distance to accept that being open may be more important than being right.
Image Courtesy of Ria Pai
In the grand scheme of things, ten years may seem insignificant. But when you’re 6 and 16, it can feel like a never-ending stretch. Growing up as the annoying little sister, I always felt a little older than I was. Still, while I was in a rush to grow up, my brother always stayed young at heart, allowing us to form the bond we have today. I’ve gotten a lot from him, like my love for perfectly fizzy Coke Zero and a Rap God party trick, but most of all, I’ve learned how to remain authentic, showing up in the ways that matter the most.
Last night, my phone buzzed eight times in a row. I squinted at the bright screen to read the notification in the dark. Of course, it was my big brother. Per usual, he had sent me a plethora of radiographs and accompanying commentary as he got off work at some ungodly hour. I turned off the phone. I would respond tomorrow.
Today, or by Friday, or next week, I will get around to it. And I know he won’t mind. There will be another stream of messages soon enough.
“I don’t text you to get a response. I text you to keep the conversation going,” he recently told me.
In moments like these, there is a decade of distance between us — and still, somehow, no distance at all.
Image Courtesy of Ria Pai
Strike Out,
Writer: Ria Pai
Editor: Hailey Indigo
Ria Pai is an Editorial Director for Strike Magazine GNV. She starts her day with copious amounts of coffee and ends it lying in bed thinking of witty comebacks to unlikely scenarios. In the interim, she enjoys making elaborate meals for the people she loves, ranting about the same three topics in her journal, and never skipping leg day. You can reach her on Instagram @veryberrypai, or by email at pairiaraj@gmail.com.
