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Competitive siblings

July 9th, 2024: Since I have hour long rides to and from work now, I might have more posts. Although they will definitely have more typos, because I have to talk into my phone to write them. 

Flew back into Orlando this morning from Milwaukee. Went back home for the 4th of July to see the whole family. Brian, Michelle, Savannah, and Skylar all came over from LA for the holiday, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to see everyone. 

It was a great trip, if a bit busy. It's always busy. When isn't it busy? But I did find some time to just walk around the park and see my friends. I just kind of told everyone I was doing it, and no one made a fuss. Except for Lea, who seems to think that she is helpful by telling me that I shouldn't do things and should just hang out with her instead.

We did a lot of things, and I loved seeing my nieces, especially Skylar. I adore that little girl. But it became too much children often. When it was just two of them, it was manageable; but when you added Kingsley and EB to the pile, it was more than my child-free soul could handle. And there was very little escape. And I often was the one stuck babysitting. Luckily, I did get a little bit of just Mom and just Dad time towards the end, even if it was only 30 minutes or an hour. Sometimes you just want adult time with your parents. 

Growing up, I didn't have a great relationship with my siblings, especially my brothers. That's changed as adults, and I genuinely and generally enjoy them and like spending time with them, but Brian did something that really bothered me these past few days. I couldn't put my finger on it at first, but then I realized what it was when I was driving to work this morning. 

Every time I mentioned my job at NASA, he had to go ahead and tell somebody that he could see SpaceX rockets launch over his house all the time from the nearby Vandenberg military. Every time. 

And when I continued, then he would pull out his phone and make sure to show somebody just how close these rockets are over his house and how cool it is that he gets to see rockets all the time. 

Motherfucker, I WORK with rockets. I work at the largest spaceport in the country, if not the world. I see them getting built, see them launch (much closer than you, by the way), see them land, am part of the CONVERSATION. 

Every time I mentioned this, he doubled down on the rockets HE saw by HIS house, showing them off like it was a brag. How on earth you think seeing rockets from your backyard is a bigger brag than literally working at the place where they launch from is beyond me. I kept thinking I should pull out photos from my own phone to show the people he was showing, but I didn't like that feeling of over-compensation. The sourness in my gut stopped me. 

I couldn't figure out why this bothered me so much. And then I realized that if he had mentioned it, or even bragged about it, in a vacuum, it would have been fine. Seeing rockets over your house is objectively cool. But to use it to one-up your sister and her awesome job? Your sister, who has struggled to make ends meet for the last 5 months. Who has lived on her own at awful jobs for years. Who fought tooth and nail to get into this industry and get a job like this.

You do that because you have an ego problem. Or you're insecure. You have to have the last word, or be the one people ooh and ahh about. You do it because California has to be better than everywhere else. You just have to win. 

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