Here’s a little crash course of all things Katherine Frangos, or Katie (my preferred name). I was born in 1996 and when I entered the world, I had a 4-year-old big brother waiting for me, probably hating the very thought of my arrival. We were your typical siblings, always fighting and blaming one another. As I got older, however, I was always compared to him by everybody I came in contact with and now, at 20 years old, I suffer from an inferiority complex.
It probably started when I was younger than 10, but at 10 years old is when I became very self-aware. I entered fifth grade and on the first day of school, once my teachers learned my last name, they’d say, “You’re Larry Frangos’ sister, aren’t you? I expect a lot out of you.” This was always followed with a sly smile, accompanied with crinkly eyes. It was a look that I soon came to despise. This began to happen every single year; it never failed.
The comparisons began to slow once I reached high school. Well, they either slowed or they became second nature to me, I honestly couldn’t tell you. By then, it was me who was comparing myself to my brother. “Larry did this so I should do it, too. Larry took this class so I should take it as well.” It was a never ending cycle for me and it made me hate my high school experience. I didn’t enjoy it, not in the least. I buried myself in homework and books so that I could remain a straight A student and be valedictorian, just like Larry was.
I got my first B in a class in 10th grade, I believe. And I hated myself. I cried for days, especially when my parents found out. No, they didn’t express disappointment in me but I had tried for so long and so hard to be just like my brother that I felt like a failure.
Senior year came and I found out that I wasn’t going to be valedictorian, just one of four salutatorians. Yes, I was still grateful and I was still proud of myself but it took a long time for me to feel like that. I cried, again, for days. I wanted to bury myself in a hole and never come out. I even told my parents that I didn’t want to walk at graduation (they thought I was kidding). I sincerely wanted nothing to do with it.
The struggle I had within myself wasn’t just pertaining to school related activities. Larry played guitar; I couldn’t play anything. Larry knew what he wanted to do with his life; I wanted to travel and put off college whereas Larry finished his degree and went straight to work. Larry was good at the ‘important’ subjects in school, math, and science; I was good at history and English (subjects that many would consider useless). Larry didn’t want tattoos and he didn’t want 30 piercings or so all over his body but I did, which is something my parents couldn’t stand.
It wasn’t until I began attending YSU in the fall of 2014 that I realized I wasn’t ever going to be Larry, no matter how hard I tried. I was out of high school and people didn’t know me in college. They didn’t recognize my last name and they didn’t expect anything from me. I really began to come into myself and realize that I had a life outside of my brother’s shadow. I started to appreciate the skills I had that I had long ago forgotten about and taken for granted.
I love my brother. We’re not terribly close, we never really were, but I know that he’d be there for me in a heartbeat if I needed him to be. I’ve grown a lot in the past two years and I’ve come to accept the fact that we’re completely different people, with different skills and unique mindsets, and that’s OK.
