Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection

When I was young, I couldn’t stand my sister, Joy, for a multitude of reasons. First, she was older than me, so she felt like she could lord it over me from sunup till sundown. Secondly, she was outgoing so she made friends easily, which was something I was hard-pressed to do. In fact, my only real friend from birth until eighth grade was one boy who I thought felt sorry for me, or some of my sister’s friends who also seemed to feel bad for me.

Because she was older than me (by fifteen months), Joy was always in the grade ahead of mine, and because we went to a small school where each grade level was taught by one teacher, she would always get the same teachers right before I got there. And saying that Joy was good in school was a massive understatement. I lost count of all the times, on the first day of each school year, when the teacher would look at me, look at my last name on the sheet, and have this look on his/her face that said, “Oh, you’re HER brother!” Then, when I wasn’t as motivated as she was, they would shake their heads and make tsking sounds, like I had disappointed them.

Ironically, just because I wasn’t a hard worker didn’t mean I didn’t perform well in school. In fact, I received the same grades as my sister, but because I came second it didn’t matter. Maybe that’s the reason I didn’t work hard. I knew I didn’t have to in order to get the grades, and my teachers wouldn’t care anyway. I would always be second. Later on in life I had a conversation with Joy about my perspective only to find out that she also felt immense pressure, and to find out that she was jealous of me, that I didn’t have to work hard to equal the grades she fought tooth and nail to get. Funny how that happened, and I had no idea.

And the friends she had were numerous and varied. For every imaginary friend I had in my camp, she had about 10 of her in-the-flesh friends, and the gap kept widening over the years. I don’t remember many weekend or summer nights when there wasn’t a sleepover going on, either at a friends’ house or at our house. I would pretend that her friends were there to see me, that I was a “man about town,” until they would pass by me standing in my doorway, scruff my hair, and treat me like I was another family pet. It was embarrassing, so I stopped pretending after that, and kept my door closed.

Through the years we’ve gone through our ups and downs. I remember in high school when she first started acknowledging my existence as her brother (although I think she only acknowledged it when the rumors of us being boyfriend/girlfriend started — Ick!). There was a classic moment I will never forget when I wanted to be the P.R. Secretary for Student Council, and she said she would be my campaign manager. She made these amazing signs and got all of her impressive arrangement of friends to vote for me, which pushed me over the top. We didn’t exactly become friends then, but it was much better than her ignoring me.

Indeed, not until the past ten years or so have we really become friends, a process that was a long time coming but one that I’m very proud of and excited to admit has happened. It traces back to a conversation we had shortly after I moved to New York state, about a history we shared but that we remembered as being radically different. It was almost like we had lived in different homes with somebody else. Honestly, it was rather surreal to have that talk and to see things from her perspective for all those years.

You see, I was always jealous of my sister’s ability to make friends, and the whole time she was afraid of being alone so she made herself get out there and be surrounded by that entourage. And she was jealous of my imagination when I felt like not many people cared for me, the reason I had cultivated that imagination in the first place.

But we were both affected by our parents’ divorce, even though it didn’t show up in outward changes for a long while. Inwardly, we were both hurting very badly, and it would have been a godsend to be able to talk about it then, but we were never able to get on that same page, so we hurt separately. And I never knew it then, but our lack of a solid relationship was also tough on both of us. In fact, in the many conversations we’ve had since that first one, we have discovered so many similarities and commiserations only the two of us understand and connect with.

It’s so wonderful to finally appreciate my sister for who she is, instead of judging her for who I thought her to be. I feel closer to her now that we’re physically miles apart than I ever did when we lived in the same house for nearly 21 years. And I miss her too. In our most recent phone conversation we decided we will do what we can to get some brother/sister time to just hang out and chat. As much as I value anything in this life, I value my sister, and the 11-year old version of me just gagged.

Which is okay.

Sam