Life Lessons from my Little Brother

There is no one in this world I love more than my younger brother. For the last 15 years, he's been my best friend and my worst enemy. He's been the voice of reason and the peacekeeper in the family, and he's been like that for a very long time. My mother calls him an "old soul" and I can't help but agree with her. He's one of the smartest people I know, and his mind is amazing in all different kinds of ways.

He's very quiet and unassuming, but beneath it all he's truly one of the best people you'd ever meet.

I first met him when I was four. I went to the hospital with my father and older brother into the maternity ward, and they had me sit in an armchair, propping my right elbow up with a pillow. They put this little squirming pink bundle in my arms with a shock of dark hair and tightly clenched fists. I have the photograph still, in a beat up frame that says "Me and My Brother." In it, I'm looking at the camera trying to imitate my older brother's close-lipped smile. In my arms is the baby that would grow up to be someone truly wonderful.

It only really occurred to me not long ago that my little brother is all grown up now. He's talking about taking the SATs, getting his learner's permit, planning for college, and laying out his whole life. He's always been like that, always sure of the next step, and it's done him well his whole life.

So here I am, five years older than him and a sophomore at university, and he still has more of a plan than I do. He's talking about taking up the family legacy and joining the military. He's talking about going to West Point. He's mapping each and every move he's going to make and when he's going to make it.

In my whole life, I've never been more proud of anyone than him, and he hasn't even done anything yet.

It's truly amazing how his mind works. He can take a single idea and run with it, elaborating and considering every angle of every perspective, and he knows when to step back again and take in the bigger picture.

And yes, he does still act like an average fifteen year old. He goofs around with his friends, he has a meme collection on his phone, and he watches goofy comedy shows all of the time. He was never really the annoying little brother type either.

I'm still the older sister that likes to mess around with him. I'll stand in the doorway and stare at him without saying anything, and when he looks up I'll say "Is this making you uncomfortable?" then he'll grin like a dork and I'll start laughing as I walk away.

We still fight over dumb stuff, and we often find ourselves debating on various topics that either one or both of us know about. I have a thing for Stephen King, he's my favorite author. He doesn't like Stephen King, despite having never read any of his work. We recently got into a debate about the quality of King's work while he was watching Doctor Sleep for the first time. I assured him that it would have made so much more sense if Kubrick had stuck to the source material, but he insists that most every Stephen King movie he'd seen was bad. (That's a whole different can of worms that I could write a fifteen page article on if I wanted to.) But in the end, we can joke about it and move on. (Not really, I'm still mad he's judging King's work based of of film adaptations.)

When watching all of those feel-good family movies or tv sitcoms, it's always the older sibling teaching the younger sibling about life, like how to survive the family or how to make it through middle school alive. When it comes to me and him, it's the exact opposite.

He's shown me that sometimes silence is a good thing. He stays quiet during a lot of arguments, trying to diffuse the situation by not adding fuel to the fire.

He's shown me that sometimes family members can make you want to tear your hair out and scream, but that doesn't mean that you need to make them feel the same way.

He's shown me that it's good to have a plan, even a rough one. Just so you can find a foothold until you're sure of your next step.

But most of all, he's shown me that its possible to break the mold set by those who came before you.

With my older brother, there's so many mistakes. My younger brother watched it all happen, and swore to himself that he would never go down that same road.

With me, I watched as my life fell apart. He was there through it all while I picked up the pieces and tried again. He started working out a plan not long after I had fallen apart, and he's all the better for it.

My parents had four of us. My older brother, me, my younger brother, and my youngest brother. It really does seem like the third time is a charm, because after my younger brother was born my parents had the perfect kid fall right into their laps. Although my parents say they don't have a favorite kid, I'm pretty sure that they favor him a bit more than us.

Honestly? I don't blame them either. He's my favorite sibling after all.

When my mom placed that little baby in my arms fifteen and a half years ago, I wanted to be his superhero, someone he could look up to. Through some weird twist of fate, the roles have been reversed.

In reality, he's my superhero. He's someone I look up to.

Here comes the super sappy part that will most likely make him roll his eyes and demand that I erase every trace of this article, but here goes:

I know I'm still trying to grow up, and a lot of people are too; but not all of them have someone like my younger brother though. When I grow up, I want to be like him.

Watching him grow up has been bittersweet, and I can't wait to see what life will have in store for him on the path he's chosen for himself.

I love you, nerd.