Siblings make promises to one another, they may break them, lose track of them, keep them, or fight over them but they make them over and over again. Siblings are with one another every day of their lives and are each other's company for so many years. They are born and find that their one constant playmate is their sibling. So yes, there is enough time for siblings to make that many promises. But even if some of those promises are never kept, there are the ones that need to be kept.
If you have a sibling, then you can understand my trepidation writing this letter. I can't say many things or even do many things that impress my younger sibling and I always live with the knowledge that the one who is always ready nearby with some friendly criticism also lives with me. Don't get me wrong, I love my brother, but there are always two sides to every person and every relationship. As an older sibling, I've been wracked with doubts and frustration, knowing as I do that being older means a lot of responsibility. I'm faced with each new experience with no guidance from anyone above me. I regularly fall and find potholes in the path that I take. I find myself wishing that someone was there to guide me and to lead me down some of the less dangerous roads. Take high school or even middle school as an example, I walked into school knowing that this new challenge would be presented in a totally different form from what I'm used to and I didn't have any relatives with me. And when my younger sibling was teased and bullied in elementary school, who was there to protect him?
Then when you look at it from my younger brother's point of view, you can see the legacy (although I beg to differ) that he has to follow in - he feels pressured to be and do whatever his older sister has done. He feels obligated to listen to her and follow in her footsteps. He shouldn't and he doesn't have to, but he does. I guess if I was in his shoes I would too. I would be pressured, feel inadequate. My older sibling wouldn't even have to do much, but there would always be an example that I would be compare to. And I hate being compared to. Instead of a whole open field of possible paths that I could take in life, my family would expect me to take the one that my older sibling marked down for me in bright red flags and neon colored signs. I would feel suffocated and burrowed under a mountain of my sibling's reputation.
But, personally, I have never felt that way. I have never felt that there were so little paths for me or that I had to live up to anyone's reputation but my own. And that's what I'm afraid of, that my own reputation is not good enough. I'm afraid I'll fail and then be a disgrace rather than a role model. These are my fears, little bro, and someday you might see them as your own towards the people who are younger than you and rely on you. If I seem hard on you, it's simply because I think you can always do better and even be better than I am, so please don't mind that I can be overbearing. When I try to fight your issues instead of letting you fight them yourself, I promise I don't mean harm or offense, I merely want you to be safe and happy (again, the overbearing aspect of my sibling-ness, I'll work on that). Thanks for listening to me and caring for me. I know you think I don't understand what it means to be a younger sibling, but it is a different world than the one I'm used to so take your time teaching me and I'll learn. I pick up on stuff quickly, I promise.
And when you are feeling down and you need a shoulder to lean on, I'll be there because what are siblings for if not for comfortable shoulder pillows?
I promise.
