When my brother and I were growing up, we often spent time with friends of the family Megan and David. David was three years older than Megan, and I was almost two years older than Vinny, my own brother. I remember how flabbergasted my brother and I would be when Megan and David would fight. And let me tell you, they fought. The reason we were so surprised, though, was because we didn’t fight. At all. Ever.
Of course, as I reached puberty, it started to get ugly. I started that stage of my life early, which, according to my psychology teacher, is bad for girls. See, if boys hit puberty fast, they’re popular. But if girls do, they’re shunned and moody. I was of the shunned and moody. And my poor little brother got the brunt of my anger, but being at that just-before-puberty age, he was just reaching his prime for being annoying.
After that, we hardly spoke. We fought constantly over the bathroom, the computer, and anything else we could find to fight about. My parents didn’t know what to do. It was such a drastic change from our usual behavior.
Luckily, though, my hormones began to even out and his annoying tendencies started to do the same (although they are still quit prominent), and lately we’ve been able to find some common ground. Now that he’s entering high school and starting to date, we have a lot more to talk about. Relationships, school, friends, parents, it’s all fair game.
My brother has always been better than me at pretty much everything. He was the athletic one, the driven one, the intelligent math-wiz one. I never got too jealous of him, however, even though I somewhat jokingly nicknamed him “the favorite child”, because I was better than him at some things. Well, one thing. Being creative. When we were younger and still got along, we;d lay on his floor with our Star Wars or Harry Potter action figures, and my brother would demand that I come up with a storyline. Usually they involved unlikely romances and elaborate fight scenes. That was my one talent I could brag about; I was pretty darned good at making crap up.
Of course, I can’t honestly say I was never a bit resentful, because there were times that I was. Who has to live up to the accomplishments of their younger sibling? That’s just wrong. But gradually, I got over it, and he got over the fact that I was never going to fit any of the normal sister stereotypes. And that’s fine with both of us. Because it’s always nice to have even one more person in your artillery of people to moan and complain to. That way, no one gets too worn out, since trust me, I have a lot to moan and complain about.
