Intimacy and the Long Lost Bonds of Brother and Sister Hood

I miss my brothers.

As a child, my first best friend was my neighbor David. He lived in a townhouse just adjacent from ours in a close-knit neighborhood that closed off its one main entrance and exit just so we could celebrate our own Olympic games every summer. This was in a suburb of Toronto, Canada, in the late 70s. David and I played with his Star Wars punching toys, we climbed up on a foot stool to wash our hands side by side before taking our meals together, and we enjoyed our idle days of toddlerhood together. I was well aware of the fact that he was a boy and though we would mimic the older kids' games of Doctor, there truly was no difference between the two of us aside from simple anatomy.

As a young girl, boys played as significant a role in my life as girls did. They were my friends as well as my boyfriends - both of which was a nonchalant game of chance and timing. Yet, as time wore on and as puberty began nipping at my heels, the minor differences that lay between us seemingly turned into a great divide. It wasn't long before boys had become some ostensible other - objects to be both desired and feared. Perhaps it was then when the innocence of childhood was irreparably lost and gone for good.

As I came into my developing body, relations with the opposite of sex quickly became a currency with which I could buy and sell stock. The more attention I received, the more my economical worth rose. The more shares I acquired, the more I wanted. My greed knew no bounds. And yet, I suffered. The playful, energetic, and fool hardy me took a backseat to a quiet and complacent mirage. By the time I left for college five hundred miles north, I was only too eager to rebel.

In my rebellion, I took up arms with my sisters and wholeheartedly embraced our systemic oppression together. I channeled all of my pent up rage and directed it towards my brothers of days past. I crawled deeper into my own fear of intimacy as I piled on weight as a barrier to protect myself from the unwanted and unasked for attention of these others. I chose to continue to place one half of my most favored playmates in the realm of separate, distinct, and outside of me. I suffered greatly as a result.

After graduation, travels, and life experience accrued outside of the four walls of a classroom, I realized that my emotional growth was greatly stunted and that I was no longer going to grow on my own, independent of others. I recognized that it was time for me to face one of my greatest fears - intimacy with men. The road since then has surely not been smooth or easy. As, true to form, I have chosen mirror images - men who are also deeply fearful of intimacy. It has made for an uncomfortable ride over the course of these past eight years. Yet, it has been a ride worth taking, nonetheless.

Now, I am mired within my fourth decade of life on this planet. This time around, I've realized that I no longer wish to seek for one sole other to meet all of my intimate needs. In fact, I've realized that I need to again embrace my brothers and love them as equally as I love my sisters. I need to let go of my fears of how they will both perceive my love and wish to love me. I need to simply wrap my arms around their strong shoulders, nuzzle into their warm necks, and take the love that feeds and nourishes me, just as I do with my girlfriends. Yes, folks, it is this simple.