I don’t make a lot of phone calls home. Skype’s free, but inconsistent w/ quality, and having to be tethered to the PC really takes the spontaneity out it. Skype calls need to be planned, and if you or the other party doesn’t make the effort, they just don’t happen.
But I called my brother on Thursday because I needed something from him. A client of mine has a system that forwards calls from an extension on their Boston phone number to my cell phone in Israel. But it wasn’t working right, so I had asked the client to make an adjustment. He did, and this is what I needed my brother to help me test.
Anyway, I reached him, and he helped me, but he didn’t have much time to talk. He had moved into his new house the day before, and you know, there was *a lot* of stuff to do.
I felt very excited for him, but understood that he didn’t have a lot of time to talk. I wanted to keep him on longer and have him tell me *everything*, but I felt like I kind of didn’t have that right. We stay in touch, but neither one of works that hard at it. I should really only speak for myself.
After the call, I thought – should I have been angry? (Such an important day in your life, and you didn’t even call to let me know?) Well, no – because speaking for myself, there is more I could do to be better in touch.
Then, I got a little hard on myself: this was a monumental event in his life, and I almost missed it. I reached him on the tail end of it, almost by accident. I mean, I can’t live without seeing the series finale of LOST, but apparently I can live without talking to my brother, his wife or my niece for a month at a time.
Don’t hate on myself. I have control over how much I call. And if I want to feel I am more a part of my brother’s life, then I have to, you know, *be* more of a part of my brother’s life.
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Gefilte Fish Out of Water 