My Little Brother Got His License And I Don't Know What To Do About It
“How many hours until morning? Will I fall asleep before Daniel? Are there such things as ghosts or monsters?” I ask my dad, twenty stuffed animals meticulously placed around me as I feel his warm hand gently stroke my hair.
“Nine, yes, of course not.” He chuckles, and my eyelids suddenly feel heavy, sleep slowly taking over my small body.
My younger brother is fast asleep two feet away from me and I take comfort knowing that we will face the dark together.
A year later, I move into my own room. I have a queen-sized bed and my own two pillows - what a life. I forget about how it feels to sleep in the same room together because the excitement of getting my own space overrides any lingering longing for company. Instead, I use a nightlight to alleviate the panic that rises in my chest when I think about the dark. As the days go on, I begin to forget what it’s like to fall asleep with his steady breathing next to me.
Fast forward. Shrieking, he and I playfully wrestle on the worn carpet, blatantly ignoring my mother’s warning that one of us was going to get hurt and choosing instead to tumble over ourselves, giggling until we flop over in exhaustion. My seven-year-old brain doesn’t tell me to savor this moment and memorize how it feels to be so young together; instead, we move into the next room and play dress up.
We sneak downstairs at six in the morning every Saturday and silently turn the Wii on, crossing our fingers that our parents won’t hear us. We cheerfully pass the remote between us (because Animal Crossing is a single-player game) and practice making toast without burning it. The hours tick by and again, I don’t realize that I should take a moment and breathe in our youth – but the world keeps spinning regardless.
Next thing I know, we’re twelve and ten and are cheering each other on in soccer games in the rainy Seattle winter. We play in our backyard together, kicking a ball around and running through the sprinklers. I start high school a year and a half later, and he starts growing older, too. We talk less, bicker more, and start to stay in our own half of our “sibling-Venn-diagram.” We experience less overlap and figuring out how to interact together is proving to be more difficult than I thought. I wonder if I’ll ever get a hug from him again, but I push that painful thought away.
Eventually, I grow out of my attitude and into new relationships with friends (and boys). He chooses to trust me and always gives the guy I’m dating a chance. He still refuses to hug me, but when we travel, we always choose to sit next to each other on the eleven-hour-airplane ride. When the cabin of the airplane grows dark, he slumps onto my shoulder and stretches out his long legs while he falls asleep. I hold my breath, praying that he won’t wake up and I’ll get to support him a little while longer.
Before I know it, it’s December 29th and he’s at the DMV, getting his license. He comes home, and that night, he goes to the store by himself for the first time. I hear his joyful shout, “Be back soon!” ring throughout the house and the front door slams shut. The silence that engulfs the house after he leaves is deafening. Memories flood into my brain and suddenly we're seven and five again.
I can picture his shiny, chocolate curls smushed into the pillow next to me as my mom sings us both to sleep. We're wrestling on the living room floor and shrieking in laughter as we narrowly avoid cracking our heads open on the fireplace ledge. I can feel his hand pass me the Wii remote and I’m taken back to when he’s shifting in his sleep as we fly across the Atlantic. He’s high-fiving me as I cross second-base in tee-ball, running to get Mom when I fall off my bike, and blowing out birthday candles each Halloween night. They are fleeting, flashing memories but they are powerful - I am thankful that I'm sitting on the couch because I feel dizzy with all this remembering.
The door opens again, and I quickly wipe the tears off of my cheeks. Bouncing into the living room, his grin lights up his whole face and I can tell the adrenaline of independence is flooding throughout his bloodstream.
“It went fine, I got us a Redbox!” he declares, and climbs under the blanket next to me. Squeezing my arm, we make some popcorn and watch the movie together. And in that moment, all is well with the world.