my little brother

by muchtomychagrin

I’ve been going back and forth in my head about how I’d like to pen down how I feel about my brother. Anybody that knows me well enough, know that family is one of the most important things to me.

So, my little brother. I’ve been watching him grow, and he’s at a very pivotal part of his life right now. What with moving away from home, holding ground to who he’d like to be as a person, albeit still a little shaky on the principles and morals but invariably, with a clear idea that he wants to be a good person.

Sometimes, I doubt him a little bit and give him room to disappoint me. Maybe it’s in my character to expect it, but he’s still growing up; almost legal but with so much of life to still comprehend and understand. I guess that only spurs me on further to guide him but sometimes I wonder if I’m trying to mould him into something that I shouldn’t take upon myself to be responsible for.

Mom complains to me that he doesn’t talk very much. I know she misses him, now that her two children have left home. And with Mom’s constant anxiety, knowing that her little baby is halfway across the world, that particular little baby doesn’t really know how to pacify her when she wants a lengthy conversation. (The kind of lengthy conversation that consists of a whole bevy of things: from shoes to salads and from TV dramas to life dramas.) But he makes up for his lack of conversation by being relatively sensitive and is a really sweet son to Mom. If Dad has a last-minute dinner, he’ll cancel his plans to stay home and have dinner with her. He’ll accompany her when he knows that she has noone to take walks with. I hope Mom realizes how lucky she’s got it.

I feel bad when Mom and I upload our girl dramas onto him. He’ll storm off screaming “What is wrong with you women, I don’t understand you, AUGH!” I guess he’s still got to learn how to deal with women. No man knows how to do this naturally, it’s all from experience. I attest to the fact that his future girlfriend/fiancee/wife will thank us for it. (I hope she does, and in a good way, you know, you can always tell a good guy from the way he treats the women in his life). Besides, I want to love my future sister-in-law. Its only natural that I’m protective of him. It’s important that she’s good to and for him.

I worry about him and I take care of him. Sometimes I feel like I parent him. My parents have resigned to coming to me for advice and whatshouldwedos and howshouldwefixthis when shit regarding my brother hits the fan. They say that it’s because out of everyone else, he will only listen to me. It was really important that he saw me as someone he could go to – someone he could trust and depend on. I never purposely went out with a goal in mind to make my brother depend on me, I just wanted him know that he had someone in the family.

It’s taken a while for us to reach where we are today. We used to squabble like all siblings do, we have our differences. At one point, I don’t think we cared very much for each other. But over the past few years or so, I’ve taken it upon myself to be the best big sister I possibly can to him. And last night, halfway across the world, over MSN, he let me know that I succeeded.

“Jie, you’re the best sister <3 in teh world.”

Filled with geek speak and all; it totally made my day. I went to bed, glowing with pride and my heart smiling.