My Brother, the Sage: The Dissolution of a Sibling Rivalry

This past winter, I went to the LA area to visit my brother for the first time since he graduated college and moved across the country-- or, as he likes to tell it, I went to visit my boyfriend and conveniently stopped by my brother’s apartment once or twice. To be fair, my partner’s large family home was a little more of a realistic choice of accommodations than his tiny apartment, especially with the amount of clothing that my vanity and anxious tendencies force me to pack. The trip was amazing, despite, or perhaps because of the fact that we couldn’t go anywhere. My partner’s family was welcoming, the weather was warmer and sunnier than an East Coast girl could ever imagine for January, and I got to see my brother. My giant, sarcastic, deadly funny, slightly arrogant, big brother. 

For a long time, seeing my brother did not feel like a luxury. With three years between us, we were just far enough apart that we found each other profoundly stupid and just close enough that I copied everything he did. In kindergarten, I began a Pokemon card collection so I could lord over him with every special pack I bought with my allowance. In second grade, when we moved to the U.K., we both switched to Premier League trading cards, fighting over the Steven Gerrard limited edition that somehow always ended up in the other sibling’s binder. The same pattern went for music. When Owen liked Tim McGraw, I listened to Tim McGraw. To this day, I can sing “Last Dollar Fly Away” on cue, twang and all. When he joined a youth group and started to get into Christian rock (I’m still convinced he had a crush on one of the girls at church) I downloaded an entire Newsboys album on my iPod Nano. When he decided alternative was the genre for him, I went through a premature angsty phase and spent my after-school hours thrashing around to Muse and Mariana’s Trench. 

Once I entered middle school and he started high school, the outright imitation stopped, but the rivalry did not. Now, we had enough experience with unpleasantness to turn against each other in earnest. His growth spurt allowed him to carry me upside down around the house whenever I was annoying him, and my brown-nosing and giant blue eyes landed him in trouble with my parents for arbitrary crimes more than once. The one year we both attended the same high school wasn’t fun, either. I had one ear to the ground at all times for juicy tidbits of gossip that I could use to blackmail him for rides, and he told all of his cute senior friends to call me “Lil Rudy.” 

But, for us, that old adage of “absence makes the heart grow fonder” proved true. With Owen away at college and fewer opportunities for pestering, the scant time we spent together became more valuable. Although he ditched me to go to a concert and sent me to the wrong airport after I visited him in Chicago in my junior year, I remember the only fight we got into was when I told him the food at the local chicken shack he and my dad adored was nasty. 

In California, we didn’t bicker at all. One bright day, eating deli sandwiches in a park in LA, we even talked about the fears and uncertainties of our futures. The worries we had about living as ethical a life as possible in a world that makes it hard to be a good person. I even asked him for advice. You see, the previously mentioned boyfriend’s family home was, in fact, very large and very lush, and I was feeling overwhelmed by the discrepancies in my family and my partner’s family’s lifestyle. It reminded me of last year, my freshman year at Columbia, a year characterized by spending time and income I didn’t have on mimic designer clothing, expensive sushi, and lusting after the luxury vacations my classmates posted on Instagram, even after the pandemic showed its teeth. Of course, I possess a massive amount of privilege, but elite institutions have an uncanny knack of making even the extremely lucky feel like absolute dirt. It seems that everybody has connections, goals, and jobs I didn’t even know existed, as if my classmates were privy to secret clubs where I could only knock timidly on the door. 

Then, Owen looked at me and said something that stuck: “If you spend all your time thinking about what you could be, you waste what you are.”And, at that moment, I realized that my big lump of a brother was smart. Maybe even kind. 

It’s not that I didn’t know he was intelligent-- more that I couldn’t bear the thought of him knowing that I knew and recognized it. In the same way that I tried for the first year of college to keep up with my wealthier friends, I’ve always tried to keep up with my brother. The need to beat him came from an acknowledgment that he would do everything first, so I had to do it better, and the fear of being known as nothing more than his little sister. A rite of passage for every sibling that passes through the same high school as their older counterparts is having a teacher who recognizes your last name and asks, “Are you related to so-and-so?” Owen made a splash at our tiny high school with his effortless academic prowess, confidence, and musical and athletic ability, and I thought I could escape his shadow by scoring ten points higher on the SAT.  Nothing matched the sense of absolute glee I had when the French teacher we both asked for college recommendations told me I was a harder worker. 

But part of growing up is realizing sibling rivalry, outside of the occasional family game night, is a useless gimmick. There are enough people in the world that we are forced to pit ourselves against without isolating your family. Sibling love, even if it is unconditional, can always be improved with a little empathy and solidarity. After all, who else can I make fun of my mom for wearing a “DEMOCRAT” face mask with, or my dad for his terrible video call angles? I’m done wasting a big part of what I am: a sister. 

But, Owen, if you’re reading this, I will always beat you at the New York Times Crossword Mini. Oh, also-- I love you, you big jerk.