Well hello, hello, hello brother

You know that moment when you have been scrolling the feed for hours now and the mighty algorithm picks funny videos for you. And it's mostly dogs and some shaggy meme videos or Norwegian hotel administrators who promote their hotel.

And then, out of a sudden, you see one of those philosophically psychological shoot-in-the heart kind of videos, about your parents, or mental dysfunction, or family, or death, whatever is your kryptonite. It strikes in. You are out of balance and you are the victim. Or at least in no denial of the victimhood.

It's Friday night when I'm writing this, and I have maybe had a couple of beers and I have perhaps had a little of mind enhancing esoteric vitamins. And the video was about siblings.

On the trip to Asia this year, among other mind-expanding milestones I've so unknowingly committed to and achieved, I've met my only (full subscription) brother, whom I haven't seen for 8 years. When I came out as gay, my family quietly disowned me. No news of mine suddenly mattered, I couldn't share anything about my private life without being ostracized. My fabulousness became one more family secret. When I finally figured that none of that can be reversed and had to witness the emotional unripeness and off-putting narcissism of my mother, I thought it cannot go on. And it didn't.

I stopped talking to her and herewith with all the family members. Frankly, so few of them have actually made it, but I was forever exiled from the ruling domain of my abusive mother. And my brother, by association.

My brother is only one and a half years older than me, and naturally, we hung out together all the time when we were kids. All the toys, Nintendo's, sweets and violence we shared. We shared the moment our parents divorced, making no job of explaining why daddy disappeared. "He's left", - this was all we got. We shared the moment my uncle tried to kill me. We shared the moment my alcoholic mother tried to throw the newborn half brother from the balcony, in the darkness of despair of the post birth depression. We shared the moment my father bought us a computer, as a surprise, something we both have dreamt of more than anything else. I was in the tenth grade. We both have shared the war we have been through, fight for the living and the right for existence, even if it still seems quite normal to him.

We met on Phuket and after so many years, I still felt it, that we are connected and we share the same core. His career path weirdly resembles mine, and I don't think it's a coincidence. After he stayed with my mother for 32 years, it was a miracle to see him finding himself eventually.

We've started off the moment from years ago, as if those eight years never happened, some common software just resumed from the save point, and kept going. I've met his friends, and I was so pleasantly surprised, how deep and interesting they were. When will I find someone to talk about the "Three body problem"? I rarely get shushed by a sci-fi and fantasy book lovers, but this time I got served dick. Big time. He met my husband, and his friends did too, and even if there was some funk in the air, it's still a feat for someone from Barnaul, Russia, not to make it to a scene.

When the time to say goodbye came, I've called a taxi for an hour ride back to the hotel I stayed in on another part of the island. We found an isolated bench somewhere in the bushes right next to his hotel lobby and just kept talking. The taxi came, and my heart fell apart. Man, in some other universe, why is it so complicated? Why are we so far away from each other, why are our destinies so far apart? And will it ever get better?

When I finally sat in the taxi, I looked at the window when the car was slowly passing by him heading back to his friends, and I suddenly put my palm on the window. He turned his head around and noticed that, quickly got back to the car and put his palm right at the spot where mine was.

I hope it doesn't take another eight years. I love you, brother.