The importance of Wednesday...

Today, is Wednesday. Wednesday has be come a rather special day in our household. It is the day that I get to spend with my brother, James. I guess to some this is a bit inconsequential, but as with everything, there is a history...

My brother and I share the same mother, but not the same father, so it happened that we did not get to spend much of our childhood together. In fact James was only six when our family was broken, and we did not see eachother for a very long time. It has only been about seven years since we made the desicion to get to know eachother again, and it has been a little rocky from time to time, niether of us really having a clue as to how to be siblings. We have sort of felt our way around. Now, we have come to a place of mutual and genuine love and respect for one another. This, is what suprises me.

You see, like a lot of us growing up I suffered abuse. Verbal, emotional, physical and sexual abuse. Life was hard and at times terrifying. Needless to say, I have scars from that time in my life. Big ones. For a long time I hated men, I know that sounds silly considering I've been married now for almost twenty years and for the most part, very happily so. When my brother and I decided to cultivate this relationship, to be honest, I wasn't sure I could do it. I had grown up sexualizing every male relationship I had ever had, how was I going to be a sister? Well, to his credit James has taught me in part how to love, sincerly and genuinely, love a man. Without sex.

Do men know even a part of the peace and fullfilment that touches a womans' heart when she is seen, truely seen as a mind and a heart and a spirit and not just a body? Don't get me wrong guys, every woman likes to feel beautiful and captivating. But it's subtle and delicate in the way it's to be handled. My relationship with my brother has brought me so much healing in so many ways, there just aren't words. Am I still afraid? Sometimes. Afraid to be touched, or to speak or be spoken to. But now there is a freedom that is comming, a freedom from that fear. To be able to look at a man and love him for himself in a "phileo" kind of way. Men are, well, fascinating. The way their minds work, the way they communicate, the way their bodies are different, the way they smell different. Teststerone is cool, and I want to not be afraid of it any longer.

Well, James has a new job and won't be comming on Wednesday any more. And for the first time I realized just how important he is to me, and just how much I will miss him. I am so very blessed, I'm sure I don't deserve it...


I know a girl
She put the color inside my world
But she's just like a maze
Where all the walls continually change

And I've done all I can
To stand on her steps with my heart in her hands
Now I'm starting to see
Maybe, it's got nothing to do with me

Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too...

Boys you can break
You'll find out how much they can take
Boys will be strong
And boys soldier on
But boys would be gone without the warmth from
A womans' good heart

On behalf of every man
Looking out for every girl
You are the god and the weight of her world

So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too.

John Mayer "Daughters"