One of my favorite shows of all time was Hey Arnold. To this day, I still try to find reruns of the show, but the results come out nil.
There was one episode when Helga’s older sister, Olga came to visit. Helga disliked Olga a lot and couldn’t stand being near her. She tried everything to sort of terrorize her; like changing Olga’s report card from all A’s to all mediocre grades.
At the end of the episode, Helga said to Olga that the farther away they are, the closer they get. So when Olga moved a cold country to teach, the sisters became more close. They exchanged letters and talked on the phone a lot.
But is it true though? The farther we are from the people who we dislike best, do we get any closer?
I fully believe it’s true.
This summer, half of it was spent away from my brother. My brother and I fight a lot. We hardly ever get a long and if we do, it’s probably because I just got out of bed and is still half asleep. Or usually when we are watching, "My Name is Earl".
I would call him occasionally and we would talk on the phone for about 30 minutes. Our conversations were usually about how we were doing. Other than that, it was just all blah, blah, blah. We became closer on those conversations alone.
But when Richie came to stay at New York with me, the closeness began to dwindle.
Maybe the first two hours was okay. Then when I came back from the Miss. ISA fundraising ball that night, we began to fight over the couch.
Okay, actually, his (dirty) feet was near my head while I was watching TV and that pissed me off. It’s disgusting to have your brother’s feet near your hair. It’s even beyond disgusting to have your brother’s dirty feet and his newly bitten legs (by mosquitoes) on your hair!
The next day, my cousin Mateo, my aunts Grace & Em-Em, Richie, Chloe, Grandma, and I all attended this little girl’s birthday party.
There was these two little boys who were acting like jerks and my cousin Mateo & Richie said, "That’s my cousin/sister you’re messing with!"
That’s one of the outcomes when you’re so far away from your relatives that you usually couldn’t stand. They stick up for you and be by your side.
When I was about 11 and Richie was about 9, he wasn’t by my side. Instead of sitting with me at this ride, Richie said with his friends and here I’am; all alone, being stared at, when my brother wasn’t at my side. Bastard.
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Now, my relationship with Richie is horrible. A couple days ago, we fought about something really stupid. My brother has the worst anger management issues of all time and I was imitating him. So then he tried to hit me but couldn’t since Grands caught him.
Grandma tried to ask us what happened and crap like that. Then all of a sudden, Richie looses his temper and attempts to hit me.
One of my lenses on my glasses broke off my glasses and the top part of my glasses bend. On top of that, on the sides of the bridge on my nose, it was bleeding.
Grandma became angry and sad at the same time. She felt pity for me that I was bleeding. However, I thought she was just seeing things because it didn’t feel like I was bleeding. No offense to Richie, but he really does hit like a bitch. (So does my mom, guess that’s the wimpy side of my family.)
I didn’t realize that I was actually bleeding until I took my shirt and padded my nose on it. Tiny specs of blood came on the shirt and I knew it wasn’t serious. I went to the bathroom and put some rubbing alcohol on my nose. Who knows if Richie doesn’t wash his hands. (His nails are filled with dirt!)
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When it’s school time, me & my mom don’t really get along that well either. And this summer, I’ve probably seen her maybe about three times.
We’ve became a little closer. Thanks to our myspace comments & short phone conversations. Maybe it’s the fact that were so different is making us closer and sometimes, tear us apart as well.
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Try it with someone who’s a relative of yours and you don’t like that much. Spend about a couple weeks away from each other; limit about one phone call per day and see your relationship blossom.
During those couple weeks, you’ll have this everlasting passion to see that relative again.
Then, we you get to see each other again, remember to bring a body guard and some rubbing alcohol.
