Hey, sis.
This letter isn't easy to write, but it's about time I said something.
I haven't been the best brother. When we were younger, I broke into your room to mess with your stuff. I talked shit about you to my friends who never met you. Hell, I talked shit about you to your face.
Honestly, through most of my adult life, I blamed you for every bad thing that ever happened to me. I told myself that I would have been closer to the friends that I lost, closer to the places they wanted to hang out. I told myself that if it weren't for your shitty attitude or the way you fucked around, that I would be happier.
When you ran away from home at 15, blaming our parents' for keeping you trapped, I thought you were an idiot. When you came back diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, I figured it was complete bullshit. Just something you forced out of a psychiatrist with lies to explain your bitchy teenage attitude. I saw how much money was being thrown away on medicines and therapy. Then how much our parents' struggled financially. I blamed you for everything.
Everything bad in my life was your fault. You became the villain. An example of everything I never wanted to be.
Every time I chose not to take a risk, I justified it by using you as the example. When you moved out at 19, and I saw how bad everything went for you, I chose to live at home. When you struggled with alcohol, I avoided it like the plague. When I saw you come crying to our parents for cigarettes, I vowed never to enable anyone in my life to pick up the habit. I watched you and thought I was the bigger man, the better man by using you as an example.
Now I'm sitting here, a month before my 27th birthday, stagnant in a pool of my failures, living my sad excuse of a life. All because I've been afraid to live as you do. Afraid to take even a small step away from my little safe and secure bubble. I realize that you're not the example of what I should be, you're the example of what I could be. Before I knew it, you jumped ahead of me and became more of an adult than I've been capable of becoming.
I'm not writing this for pity, and I'm not writing this to make myself feel better. I'm writing this because I have to apologize for abandoning you as a brother for my selfish idea that I was better than you. I was so stuck in what could have been that I didn't see how much you've managed to accomplish, how much you've managed to grow.
You've graduated with your degree, even though you struggled to make it through a day of high school. You received more honors than I even knew existed. You've found the love of your life and have made huge strides to grow past the mistakes of your past.
I'm proud of you, sis. I
You're the bigger person, and that makes me happier than I ever thought possible.
