January 2nd is my brother's birthday. I am not sure how old he is exactly and I know I can figure it out if I want to but I don't want to. If I nail his age, my own becomes all too evident. And I don't want to think about that. He is doing well and I am happy for him -- he has a nice business which he runs himself (accounting -- gross, but whatever), he drives a nice car and he has a great wife whom we all adore. Drinking my coffee this morning in my very quiet house (kids sleeping, husband sick in bed) I thought about my brother and how he always set these huge goals for himself as a kid. And got mocked for it.
Since I have become quite goal oriented with this blog thing, I thought a lot about the time when Eric was on the track and field team in high school and made a bet with our older brother Karl, and his friend Steven -- Eric told everyone he was going to go to the Olympics to compete in the Decathalon. Karl and Steven said he couldn't. And they bet him a lot of money that they were right. (I can't remember what it was but at the time I remember thinking it was a huge amount.) Since I was only nine years old, I thought it would be pretty cool for me to have a brother in the Olympics. I constantly talked about it to my friends in the neighborhood. I helped him train during the summer, setting up his hurdles on the cracked sidewalk and holding the stopwatch as he ran up and down the street. I don't know how he did it but he was even able to set up a pole vault with the huge landing cushion. Somehow he was able to borrow one from the track team. I thought that was pretty cool too. But inevitably, even with all of his earnest training, deep down in the belly of childhood knowledge, I just knew he wouldn't make it. I remember that it made me feel sad and discouraged. And the teasing he got was relentless. When it was finally quite obvious that Eric would not be competing in the World Olympics, I was a little embarrassed myself for picking the wrong team. ( A sentiment which then launched feelings of guilt about my lack of loyalty which almost immediately segued into thoughts of self-anger... needless to say this dramatic fluctuation of emotions provided excellent training for my future life as an adult female and mother.)
Sometimes, I can still hear the guys laughing at my brother for not meeting his "crazy goal." And when I think of some of my goals when I was little -- to be a tennis star, a teacher, a writer, an artist -- I get nervous. Like if I tell too many people that I want to really finish the novel I have started (and stopped) writing, they will laugh at me too.
I am constantly asking myself, why do I care so much? When I try to answer, I think it goes back to those experiences when we were kids and everyone walked around with these awesome life aspirations -- there was always a pervasive sense of embarrassment about setting the bar too high and failing to reach it. Nobody likes to look bad. It's just that some people care less than others about being judged. They just get up off of the ground, dust themselves off and try again. Hmmmmm.
This morning, I had an awesome biscotti with my coffee. As I sat there worrying about my husband (who I am pretty certain has the flu), I told myself that there was nothing else I could do better at that moment -- that the present was all I had. So with a congratulatory nod to the successful life my older brother has right now, I ate that biscotti and enjoyed every single crumb. Now that was a great, achievable goal.
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