A champion

My mother gave birth to four children. There was me, my younger sister and my younger brother. I never realized how common it was for people in my life, my sister and brothers especially that people that we interacted with on a daily basis were unaware that I wasn’t the oldest. My sister Taylor is two years older than I am, six years and eight older than my sister and brother respectively, which I guess plays a role in the disconnect between all of us as siblings. That’s not to say that is always the case because I myself am an example because of the close nature I share with our younger siblings. My sister and brother have some semblance of a relationship with Taylor but our relationship is virtually nonexistent. The person that I spent most of my formative years with and ample amounts of time is a stranger to me. It’s a hard concept for people to grasp, because to say that you don’t speak to your sister doesn’t usually carry the same weight that it does for them when it comes from me. I don’t even know where my sister lives, just that she is in michigan and from time to time I would see her, for lack of a better word avoiding me in our home. It’s to the extent that she won’t even pass me going up the steps and I can count the conversations that have been meaningful for us on one hand with three fingers to spare. My sister can’t even be in the same room as me without looking like she wants to puke or just be anywhere but where she is at the moment. Ironically enough we were roommates for the better part of a year and I maybe saw her 25 times, and that’s being generous. A while back my dad and I were talking about her and it’s not a secret in my house how she feels towards me but he genuinely asked me why and at the time I had a few ideas but I don’t think I was in a place to really give him a good answer. I don’t say these things to paint my sister in a bad or unflattering light, but only to paint her as she is. I don’t really know how she feels about me, because how she feels towards me in my head is different from that, I would love to assume that she does carry a sense of some kind care for me but I honestly am not very sure. Even though she wouldn’t ever get to this conclusion on her own I have immense respect for my sister because everything I did growing it was because I wanted her to like me, I wanted to impress her, I wanted to do everything she did. I always tell people that you will never be able to fathom how much your younger siblings admire everything that you do, it’s inherent to want to be just like them to an extent at least. I think when my sister looks at me she sees immense pain, and I know that she remembers more than I do about our childhood and everybody’s recollection is a little different even if we all were a part of the same situation. I don’t necessarily think that we would be best friends even if we did talk all the time but I do know that we could get along, nobody else lived the way that we lived with each other in our home because everybody’s upbringing is unique to them. It is the wedge in our relationship though, I know that she believes that things were easier for me because I was younger and to an extent I’m sure they were that’s how it happens for younger siblings but she has to understand how brave I saw her to be because everything that I was able to “ get away” with was directly correlated to her and that she had to be our champion so that it would better for us. I know first hand that doesn’t seem fair because I am also the oldest but It makes me happy to know that anything I had to do made it so that my siblings could be who they are, and she did that for me. I can never repay her. I don’t know anything about her but it’s synonymous with worship in how I view her. I see so much pain and quiet strength in how my sister lives her life. She made her own way so that I had the role model to do the same. We owe everything to her. My three siblings and I are a sub-family and she is the matriarch. All of our success that we have had or will have is accredited to her even if she doesn’t understand that. It can be lonely at the top because I am a younger brother and a older brother I understand the dynamic and I also have someone close to me that understands that dynamic as a middle child but the oldest and the youngest have special responsibilities that aren’t in any rule book there’s no blueprint in being the first born you legitimately learn as you go, and I admire her for that. I don’t hold any ill feelings for the way my sister views me or how she treats me because I see how good her heart is and I would rather the entire world get a taste of how special she is because as much as they deserve to witness it she deserves it to be seen. If she has to focus the bad and the pain and the sadness on me then I am okay with that, of course I wish that I wasn’t only shown glimpses of the great she can do but it would be selfish of me to want her to show me her greatness at the expense of the rest of the world. I am able to live with it because she’s shown me how to survive whatever the situation because she didn’t ever put a price on the security of an older sibling because they don’t even know they’re providing it the way they are. My sister will do great things and I couldn’t be more excited because it isn’t about myself or my younger sister and brother it’s about her because it’s her time now.