I find it funny that you can spend your entire adolescence resenting someone with all your teenage powers of resentment (I don’t have to tell you how strong those were. Remember seeing your mom wearing tapered jeans? Remember how annoyed that made you?), only to find, that in your early adulthood, the object of your resentment is the coolest person you know.
My brother and I are close. Like, email twenty-something times a day close. As teenagers, though, we made torturing each other our raison d’etre, which tends to happen when siblings are too close in age. Our circles of friends overlapped as did our class schedules. We fought about everything – whose turn it was to have the car , whose friends were more obnoxious. Who was the biggest waste of human space ever.
My mother used to say that when we grew up, our siblings would be our best friends. We believed that like we believed she lived a drug-free existence in that southern California hippie commune in the 70s. Both, however, turned out to be true. My siblings are amazing. Regarding the other, I think getting stoned would do my mother a world of good, but some things are out of my hands.
So, what suddenly brought all this brotherly love stuff on?
Sometime today, I’ll get a phone call from a police chief asking me to verify that my brother is not only not a criminal, but also a fine, upstanding human being and thus, good cop material. I’ll probably be asked a handful of standard questions, but what I’m really hoping for is an essay section. You know, where I get to tell the Chief all the reasons I used to think my brother was such a bastard and why now, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have looking out for me. That I’ve never met anyone who believes more strongly in fairness than that guy. That he’s smart -- phone-a-friend smart. And that I’d totally trust him with a tazer -- except maybe around my dog. He never did like my dog.
I thought about making a little outline for my essay, but one of the designers just brought me some Riccola and hot hazelnut milk (he says his mother used to make it for him when he was sick). So, I’m gonna put the essay aside and pamper my sore throat. If the Captain calls in the meantime, I’m not too worried. I can probably wing it.
My brother and I are like that too. We used to "one-up" each other as adolescents, and when he was in Marine Boot Camp last year, we wrote letters (ACTUAL letters) to each other every day so that he could retain his sanity.
Talk about a surprising - and fantastic - turn of events.
Posted by: Kimberly at October 27, 2004 11:46 AMMy sister and I were like that. My mom was an only child and spent her childhood fervently wishing for a sister, so she just coulsn't understand why we spent so much time trying to claw each other's eyes out. But when she moved out and I was still in high school I called and begged her to come visit me because I missed her. We're much closer now that we don't live together and have our own lives.
Posted by: Judy at October 27, 2004 12:21 PMMy sister and I were the same way, but our problem I think was being too far *apart* in age rather than too close. When I hit puberty I of course wanted no part of coming down to her level to relate, and about the time I was starting to grow out of it, she was just growing into it, etc. and we proceeded to try to tear each other's hair out for the next decade plus. However, as she's growing older and things are finally mellowing we chat all the time. I get lots of "I miss you" phone calls now, and I was the first she rushed breathlessly to when she recently got engaged (pardon me while I faint... again). Being in different cities, each with our own lives now most definitely helped the warm fuzzies along.
Posted by: Babs at October 27, 2004 12:56 PMA friend of my brother's has a sister 15 or so years younger than her. When she moved back home at 24 or 25 for a little while, she said it was terrible as both of them had grown up with their parents as only children and now that they had to share things it was driving them both crazy! Hilarious.
Posted by: Michael R at October 27, 2004 01:43 PMI remember looking at my mom one day when I was about 15 and just wanting to *choke* her because of the way she was breathing. She irritated me ALL THE TIME.
Of course, my payback was watching my daughter go through the same thing ("Mom! Do you have to do that?" "Do what?" "Sing with the songs! Stop singing them! GAWD Mom! And why are you wearing *that*? Ew!")
Now, of course, we're best friends. And her little brother she used to make faces at and slam the door on is someone she looks up to.
Literally.
Hmm...funny, isn't it? How perspective changes. Good post. I'm glad you and your bro are close. Sibs cannot be replaced, that's for sure. :-)
Posted by: Amber at October 27, 2004 02:54 PMThe older of my two younger brothers and I, born 18 months apart, beat the hell out of each other until we were both in college. (I mean literally -- using steel Tonka trucks as weapons, going to the ER for stitches, the whole nine yards.) He's now probably the third coolest person I know. The second-coolest is my sister, who's eight years younger. She's the bat-crazy (but razor-sharp) aunt my kids never knew they needed.
Posted by: Lex at October 27, 2004 05:13 PMI have every hope of being the bat-crazy aunt one day.
Posted by: Fish at October 27, 2004 05:16 PMI don't have any siblings. I feel like I missed out on something and that I continue missing out on something. That's why I want to have two children, so they can get to the point that you and your brother are at now.
Posted by: Oz at October 27, 2004 05:51 PMi have talked to many a police chief on behalf of my brother... who is also trying to be a cop.
Posted by: nicole at October 27, 2004 09:12 PMYes, yes, how we could despise with all of our being as teenagers! You hit that right on the head. And brothers? Oh, there was a special level of hatred for my brother, who I used to flip off regularly - from the safety of the other side of the wall, of course. What a pain in the ass he was, and everything he did back then was irritating in the extreme.
And as you have found, now he is one of my closest friends and confidantes, someone I can go to when everyone else would turn away. He's the only one who truly understands some of the hell of our childhood, and I can't contemplate the world without him.
Posted by: carrie at October 27, 2004 09:24 PM