When I was little, I loved being the oldest. Having a little brother, and (eventually) 10 younger cousins meant that I always had someone to follow me on my crazy adventures, go along with the games I made up, and occasionally boss around. (Okay, I was actually really bossy, but that’s part of being the oldest, right?)
My closest cousin is less than ten months younger than me, and I’m 15 years older than the youngest of the bunch. I always had friends to play with and little ones to babysit. I never felt lonely, and I was never the one left out. It was a pretty sweet gig.
It still is pretty sweet, but the older I get, the more I feel a sense of responsibility, not for them, but to them. I think the bossiness I threw at my cousins when I was younger has turned into this mindset of pushing myself instead of them.
I was the first one to get a job, to graduate high school, to bring a boyfriend home at Christmas. Those things were fun. It was great to have my whole family watch me walk across the stage at graduation. The first time I pulled up to my grandparent’s house in a car all by myself, I felt like a real adult.
But I was also the first one to quit a job, drop a class, and go through a break-up. My family, who cheered me on at graduation and cross country meets, had to cheer me up as I complained about classes that were too hard and relationships that weren’t working.
They were gracious—they always are. Even the youngest of all my cousins can listen to my failures and still mail me pictures she’s drawn of her and I so I can hang them up in my apartment, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t worried about failing her.
This past summer, my cousin Allisyn and I spent a day together mostly eating cake and watching Netflix. In between movies, we talked, and I told her about times I’ve misjudged situations, and times I’ve been hurt and done the hurting. It was hard to sit next to her and paint a realistic picture of myself, but it was real and it made our relationship stronger.
Since I’ve been in Scotland, she has texted me about what’s going on in her life, and those texts mean the world to me. I know that I’ve said and done things that I wouldn’t be proud to tell my cousins, but if the honesty of my experiences can open up doors to real conversations, I’ll tell them about my failures every single day. Failing at things is a part of life, a part that I will continue to share with my cousins and brother, because I want them to go into their own individual futures knowing that it’s okay to make mistakes.
