It's amazed me since I was 14 or so, old enough to understand, that my brothers and I, despite being so closely related and it being so possible for us to have turned out the same, we all ended up in our own little Punnett square, each one with some characteristics opposite to the other, some personality traits completely foreign to the other, some ideas and thoughts and ways of being unknown to those so close.
I am: the kind one, the crybaby, the thinker, the smart one, the peacemaker, the tattletale, the goody-two-shoes, the advice-giver, the rager, and the truth-teller.
Little brother is: the wild one, the outgoing one, the easily-befriended one, the carer, the feeler, the talker, the goofball, the jack of all trades, and the one-of-a-kind.
Older brother is: the black sheep, the screw-up, the disappointment, the shy one, the panicker, the lost soul, the manipulative, put-upon, misunderstood one, and the...
I never realized how much I dislike my older brother until I made that list. I couldn't think of anything positive to say. And I love him-- how can I not think of something positive about someone I love? I dislike him because I miss him. He never became what he was supposed to become for me-- he was my big brother, he was supposed to take care of me and protect me. Instead he made my life hell. What is it, what makes people the way they are? Genetics? Can't be, look at us, all from the same mom and dad. Experience? Can't be, we were all raised the same. Has to be a combination of those two, somehow that combination soured in my older brother.
Not that I'm perfect. I am a tattletale and a goody-goody, I know. But I don't trick my dad into giving me money for a car or school that I then spend on a trip to Vegas and a flat-screen tv. And I didn't get so involved with drugs as a teen that I forgot what it was like to be human, and still can't remember.
Little brother is definitely his own person. He'll never be normal, he'll never have an office job, and he'll never "settle down." Always on the go, go, go, but he takes care of himself. He has friends everywhere, real friends who care about him because he cares so much for them. He told me his purpose in life is to spread the love that he feels from Dad, Mom, and me, the love that he's always had, around to those who need it. Dad said his purpose is to watch his children soar, which is sad since only two of us are. I feel that love from them too, I know how much they appreciate and respect me, and it's a big part of who I am. Why does older brother not feel it? What is it in him that makes him impervious and oblivious to the good life he could have?
I feel like I've answered my own question here, that maybe he is what he is because we all think of him now in terms of the list I made. There's no other way now, though-- he has become that list, whether it was self-assigned or prescribed for him by us, it doesn't matter. I could still change my mind though. If he went to school, if he got a job and kept it, if he called once and a while for something other than to complain to me about how hard life is, I'd feel differently. I know I would, because I'm also a forgiver.
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