After having made the entry about "giving up" yesterday I spoke to the elder brother last night. It was, like it always is, like coming up for air after you've been under water for just a little too long.

Life affirming, reassuring and a little breathless.

There were no angsty words exchanged, as sometimes happens when it's been awhile. It was just comfort food.

When I arrived home (I spoke to him from my car, with what time was left on my ride home after having been entertained by Splink for the bulk of the ride) I did all my usual junk but then, under the guise of cleaning out some space went through some letters, some notes, some memories. Not all connected to the elder, some to J some to the dropped from the face of the planet baby of the group, but all from that particular gaggle of geese.

I'd be lying if I said that the ones from the baby didn't hurt just a little seeing as how things turned out.

The ones from the elder brother though...they got stuck in my head.

I had a dream about the elder last night. I dreamed (dreampt...what is the proper way to say that? anyone?) that The Elder Brother was lying on his bed in his old room. I mean really old room, back in the house he lived in when I first met him. He was lying on his stomach and wearing jeans and a white tank.

He looked tired, and maybe just at the begining of a cold, you know how when the Elder Brother starts to get ready to have a cold he get's that look? So I went into his room and settled myself sitting over his butt/thighs, like I always used to, ready to rub his back, like I always used to.

Elder looked over his shoulder at me and said, "We gotta talk".

I lifted slightly for him to turn over, but kept my place sitting on him. We've had many conversations in this position, the Elder and I. He asked me to move. Said that this conversation couldn't be had with me sitting on him like I was.

This did not bode well. I had a tummy full of acid and dread as I slid off and leaned my head against the wall next to his bed.

He took my hands in his and said. "I left Kim. I did it months ago." I tried to get up, to run out of his room. If he left her and hadn't told me it was because he thought I'd assume it was to be with me, and that assumption would be wrong. I couldn't handle him not wanting to be with me, now that she wasn't his excuse.

He held my wrists in his hands.

"You aren't going to do this to me. I'm not Jordan and you aren't going to run from me like you do from him."

And then he told me, with tears on his face, a story I won't tell here because it involves things that really happened to him, painful things that shouldn't be exploited for the sake of my dreamtelling, but in the end he said it all came together to make him realize that he was not really living his life because he was unhappy in his marriage.

He told me that he left her and didn't tell me right away because he didn't want to leave her FOR ME, he wanted to leave her because leaving her was right. And he wanted to be sure.

Now he was, and if I would have him he was ready to be happy with me. If I wasn't ready for that then he'd wait for me, for as long as it took.

So I guess I haven't really given up on him. I guess I've just shoved what I've always wanted way far down into my subconscious.

It could have stayed there really, instead of coming out to make me think, in a dream as vivid as reality that there was hope.

It's funny because I have other stuff going on, and I have the younger brother saying stuff that's really yummy to hear and I have another person or so making me smile but then...

J always said it, somewhere, under there, even when you're telling me you love me,

there's don.

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