If there is one person I could go to in the situation of something happening in my life, it is my brother.
I’m super close with my grandma, mom, dad, and friends, but through everyone, my brother is the one that I know won’t judge me and won’t tell anyone. He will do the same with me, which is why I always know when there is a new girl he likes or when a friend did something absurd.
It’s not always like that though.
My brother is the only person on earth that I have screamed at. He makes me the most frustrated, and he pushes my buttons constantly, even when we are sitting on the couch.
I probably make him overly upset as well, bossing him around and getting more freedom.
Growing up, he would follow me around, begging me to do something, but I was content playing with my American Girl dolls alone. We would fight constantly, and would purposely disagree for the fun and frustration of it. It was constant pushing and pulling each other’s hair until one blew and tattled to our parents.
As we grew older, the arguments stayed, but events caused more emotional interactions to emerge.
We are both very emotional people; it makes our bond even stronger. With that, it is easy for us to hurt each other with simple acts, but when one of us is hurt, the other knows how to deal with it.
Last year, when my parents were in Las Vegas, my brother got cut from his hockey team. I think we both cried more than ever before. He cried for obvious reasons: He had just lost a team he had been a part of his entire life. But I cried for more: I cried for his whole life. That team consisted of his best friends who all went to different schools. By losing the team, he was also losing a grip on all of the friendships he had taken so long to build. He lost the coaches who had once told him that they would always be there for him and had watched him grow up. He lost the rink he had skated at since he was three and the place he sprinted through before and after practices and games while stopping to buy Gatorade and popcorn. He lost everything. I couldn’t fathom the thought that he could go through all of that, this little boy who sprinted through neighborhoods on roller skates with this team and went to Hooters for the first time not long before with that same team.
That night, I found out first. My mom called me, and in the darkness of my room, I cried. When my door opened with my brother who had found out, we cried harder. I sat with my little brother in the darkness of my bedroom with the hallway light causing a slight illumination that reflected our tear-wet faces.
He couldn’t believe it either.
Even after he left my room, I continued to cry. The thought that this little boy, who had at worst lied about playing on his phone after going to bed, could be put through this much pain by a team that held his comfort for so many years horrified me. I could only imagine what I would be thinking if I lost my dance studio, which is equivalent to my brother’s old team. It made me sick.
After he was cut, he found a new team that quickly accepted him, but the pain wasn’t gone. His two best friends stayed in touch, but all the rest acted like ghosts who had once, in a different life, cared. Even parents stopped reaching out. He refused to go to his old rink in case the team or any of its members were there then. It hurt him so much, and I felt terrible that he had to go through all of that.
I think it all made us closer.
We always were, but with maturity, we found less fighting with more conversations. There were more moments we screamed at Taylor Swift or one of his weird rap songs he likes for reasons unknown. There were more secret conversations late at night when we both wandered to the hall at the same time and more times I attempted to play his NHL game, but instead, I shot the puck across the entire ice, much to his annoyance.
There are so many things I feel sympathetic for. He mentally beats himself up over so many things, and all I want is for my little brother to be happy and relaxed doing things he loves with people he loves. Whether it’s his classmates making fun of his hair or something else entirely, he will hide it and make it seem like it doesn’t bother him until he breaks down at home, because he is sensitive no matter how he is perceived.
My brother is hilarious, sweet, and quite weird. Still, I will always stand by him through everything he goes through and will forever be the supportive older sister he needs.
And who he tells when he has a crush.
