Dear Older Siblings,

For the past twenty years I have grown up watching and learning from my older brother. He taught me how to take teasing well, and how to throw a frisbee. He taught me how to play (though never win) the game Risk, and how to protect the people I care about. Every younger sibling, regardless of the strength of their relationship, has watched their older sibling grow up and live, and has learned from them. From the everyday, probably-forget-tomorrow lessons to the unplanned drops of wisdom we hold close to our hearts, we have grown into who we are now in part because of you.

You were our warning sign.

All of us mess up at times. It’s human nature. But when you are a younger sibling, you are given a valuable opportunity. You are given an example of what to, or not to, do in the future. For example, if I saw my brother not study hard enough and my parents got mad at him, I knew that I needed to learn to study better so I wouldn’t be having the same conversation with my parents in two years. You didn’t get someone to watch, you had to charge ahead with no warning of what may lie ahead.

You taught us what in life is worth fighting over.

Siblings fight a lot over the years. Given that we live in close proximity to each other and know all the fun little things that tick each other off, fighting was not something that was hard to come by. But you taught us how to pick our battles, and, maybe even more importantly, you showed us when to prioritize your relationship and call it quits. But the most important thing you taught us about fights, is that no matter how angry we made you, we knew you'd be ready to make up with us and be friends again (once you had calmed down).

You were the only one who understood growing up like we did.

Every one grows up in a different way. That's to be expected, different families have different styles in raising children. But you're siblings, even though they didn't have a carbon copy of your childhood, still had the same parents and understood many of the frustrations and upsets you had. They were your ally, whether that meant supporting one another after you got in trouble, or maybe fibbing to cover for each other when needed (sorry, Mom).

You taught us what it means to grow up.

Whether it was observing you awkwardly move through puberty (not that we fully understood it when we were kids), sitting with you while you waited for college acceptance letters, or watching you fall in love for the first time, we were exposed to this new world of adult-like things that seemed so foreign to us. Sure, you may not have been super aware that your little sibling was still waiting for you to play like always, but instead you showed us the possibilities that waited ahead. Maybe that didn't seem as exciting as a rousing game of make-believe, but you did open our imaginations to a whole different realm, one that we could actually reach someday. Our future.

You were always there when we needed you most.

It didn't matter if you were hundreds of miles away, or even if we were upset with each other, we always knew that when push came to shove you would be there to catch us, to help us hold on and find strength. You were the one who could make us laugh even when we didn't want to, and the one who knew how to wake us up and take control. No matter what, no matter when, we knew you would always be there for us when we needed you. Even now.

Having an older sibling is like having your limbs; you take them for granted, going through life with the thought that they are just a part of you you will always have. But if you were to lose a limb, or to suddenly not have your sibling, you wouldn't be able to move through the world in the same way. My older brother made me who I am today and I know that every younger sibling out there knows, no matter how many times they have been angry or upset with their siblings, or silently wished they were an only child, deep down they know that you have helped make them who they are today. So thank you, older siblings. Thank you for living life, and for taking us along for the ride too.

Sincerely,

Your Annoying Younger Sibling