She has a [[superpower]] that she doesn't know about. She listens to any classical piece for a minute and can [[figure out->student]] who wrote it and the period that it's from, all without knowing its name.
[[Back->Fight]]Her other superpower is beating herself up. She has struggled since the day of her birth. I wasn't there, I wasn't ready yet. I still see something in Mom's eyes when she talks about her gasping for air. The anxiety of the [[first child]]. After I was born, it would take our parents almost two decades to realize that they had a daughter and a son. But she knew very early on that she had a brother. She supported me. She's a [[fighter]]. She's fought for me in ways that I still don't know. "I feel like I'm not doing enough."
"I didn't get enough done today."
She's getting ripped off and I hate it. She fights so hard and now she's burnt out worse than ever. She throws herself into everything and they've drained her.
She pushes herself past her own limits over and over again. Always [[push, push, push->signs]].
She has taught me so much. She is the [[older sister->siblings]] that I have directly and indirectly learned so much from.
To hold my ground.
To raise my voice.
To push myself.
To embrace my sadness.
[[Next->Therapy]]"Stop talking about me in therapy! Therapy is for you, you should be talking about yourself."
But I am talking about myself when I talk about her. I talk about how I worry for her. I talk about how I wish that my words could make her feel better. I talk about how I know that she deserves better. I talk about how I want to [[defend her->fighter]] in front of her stupid boss. Said stupid boss in question is the principal of the high school where she teaches.
I'm not one for violence, but sometimes I genuinely want to punch her boss in the face.
[[Next->signs]]Astrology is cheesy but it brings me comfort. I know that it isn't science, it's just looking at the day that you were born and assigning you a constellation, but that doesn't matter.
What matters is that her emotions flow freely from her. They always have, ever since we were little. she doen't hold back. When she's upset, she lets it out. She //is// a [[cancer]]. When out of her shell, she scurries about the beach, looking for pinching victims to make fun of with her family later on. She's constantly running around, trying to fend for herself, while humans, fish, waves, and birds swirl around her. She knows what she wants to do every time she leaves her shell, and when she returns, she crashes like the very wave that sends her back [[home->The Story]]. Looking back on them, it's so hard to not laugh at all of the Fourth of July-themed cakes that she had. But I think that we can all enjoys the fireworks still, despite the [[irony->chances]].
The facts that our birthdays fall extremely close to two U.S.-based holidays crosses my mind more often than anyone might think. The chances of being born within a week of a major holiday (before or after) is just over 4%. But if we do that twice (once for each of us), we get 0.1688872blahblahblah%. Not that being born near a national holiday actually //means// anything in terms of personality, but come on. Those are weird odds.
[[Next->The Ways]]I compare my sister and I to Gee and Mikey Way from My Chemical Romance a lot. The two are siblings, and while the entire band is very close, sibling connection is special. Next time we see them perform, we are going to make matching sibling t-shirts.
I think about "Brother." Sometimes I think about her sitting in a hospital room if something ever happened to me. But mostly, I think about sitting in a hopsital room if something ever happened to her.
I worry about her so much. I've had dreams where she's gone, but I never tell her about them. It feels so real. When I wake up, I think about telling her.
[[Next->Coming Out]] //And brother, if you have the chance to pick me up
And can I sleep on your couch
To the pound of the ache and pain?
Oh, in my head
'Cause I'm awake all night long
To the drums of the city rain//
-"Brother" by Gerard WayThe story of the scorpion and the crab is not very well-known to humanity. Only a slim fraction of the population can ever experience this story. It is both universal throughout each telling, but also very unique.
But this is our story.
[[Next->Moving Away]].The scorpion and the crab were very good friends. They had [[known each other->chances]] for so long, that neither of them could imagine a life without the other.
As the two grew older, the crab had to move away. It was not very far away, but far enough away for the scorpion to feel the [[absence]] of her presence. He knew that she had to go, at least for a little while, but it still hurt.
[[Next->Late-Night Texts]] //lmao I am a little tipsy//
Texts like this from the crab were not that uncommon. Not that the scorpion minded. He was a night owl anyway, the text had not woken him up. Any message from the crab warmed his heart, especially because these texts ended up in paragraphs of "sober thoughts that I can only bring myself to tell you when I'm drunk and we're hundreds of miles apart." The scorpio felt the same way. His reminders of love included funny memes or photosets of a mutual celebrity crush, or [[going out]] to get tea together on weekends when they were both home. Music is always playing in the crab's car. It's the same bands, the same songs, the same sounds, the same lyrics, but the two love it all. Listening to the same thing over and over again never [[gets old]]. Except the scorpion and the crab. They get old.
Which terrifies the scorpion.
Which terrifies [[me->The Ways]].
[[Next->Age]]We always found ways to entertain ourselves.
(live:3s)[For //years// we had a massive Littlest Pet Shop town set up in our bonus room. There was a secret league of superpets, gym, vet clinic, gym, shops. If it existed, we had it and the pets would run it.]
(live:8s)[There was also Pet Mountain, which was just a really short couch. I have a sharp memory of getting a new pet and placing them someplace in the hallway outside the bonus room. Over the course of a few days, I moved the pet closer to our play area, and when they arrived in Pet Town, that play session was entirely about that pet arriving and meeting everyone.]
[[Next->The Tax Collector]]I still maintain that the Wii is one of the greatest gaming consoles to exist. My sister and I spent so many hours of our free time as kids playing the classics: Wii Sports Resort, the LEGO games, Mario Kart Wii, and the game that we likely sunk hundreds of hours into, Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
We (click-replace:"We") [We really didn't have that strong of a competition against each other. It was just a way to kill some time and hang out together when we were bored. Before Brawl came out, we played Super Smash Bros Melee with our cousins at my grandparents' house. Now we were able to play the "upgraded" version, with more characters and better graphics in our own living room whenever we wanted, instead of having to wait to visit our grandparents during summer vacation.]
If (click-replace:"If") [If it weren't for my sister, I wouldn't have gotten into video games at such a young age, which is a terrifying thought, because I can't imagine my life without them.]
[[Next->siblings]]
The truth, whether it's ironic or not, is that unless siblings are fighting, they are likely hiding something.
(live:3s) [What also might be ironic is that I remember learning that very idea from the Nancy Drew point-and-click video game series, which was the [[lifeblood]] of me, my sister, and our cousins growing up.]
(live:6s) [The character who said this was referring to her grandchildren who were always picking fights. Even as adults they were continuously fighting largely because of their differing personalities and opinions.]
(live:9s) [To be fair, they were very stressed because they were being literally haunted by the ghost of their mother who had died very tragically when they were teenagers, but that's neither here nor there. I'm just glad that my sister and I aren't like that.]
(live:12s)[Though we do hide a lot from our [[parents->Fight]].]
[[Back->student]]
We also thoroughly enjoyed a number of board games, most notably, Cranium's (text-colour:red)[Bal](text-colour:yellow)[loon] (text-colour:green)[Lag](text-colour:navy)[oon].
[<img src="https://theycallmesteve.neocities.org/cranium-balloon-lagoon-game-best-toy_1_253562f5885e6d7878e6834c2d4ff843.jpg" width="450" length="300">]
(live:4s)[(text-colour:red)[Bal](text-colour:yellow)[loon] (text-colour:green)[Lag](text-colour:navy)[oon] has four games in one and the goal is to get the most amount of balloons. Players are awarded ballons depending on how well they play each game, and then put them in their respective player piece.]
(live:10s)[Each game has a character associated with it, so my sister and I both would "play" two of the characters that lived in (text-colour:red)[Bal](text-colour:yellow)[loon] (text-colour:green)[Lag](text-colour:navy)[oon]. I specifically played the character whose game was yellow with the yellow balloons because of my sister's extreme [[hatred and distaste]] for the color yellow.]
(live:14s)[More importantly, my sister, who was a middle-schooler at the time, created (text-style:"rumble")[''The Tax Collector''].]
(live:17s)[It sounds as hilarious as you would expect. Our characters would be relaxing and playing each others' games, until (text-style:"rumble")[''The Tax Collector''] would eventually show up. I remember that my yellow character continuously was screwed over by (text-style:"rumble")[''The Tax Collector''] and often was left with very few, if any, balloons. Again, this is likely due to my sister's relationship to the color associated with him.]
(live:20s)[But yes, I first about taxes in elementary school through my sister's creation of (text-style:"rumble")[''The Tax Collector''].]
[[Next->Wii]]She just turned 24 this year and still hates yellow. I think that on her deathbed she'll be cursing the color in her final moments.
[[Back->The Tax Collector]] One of the major ways in which we bonded throughout my pre-teens was this game series. For roughly five years, two Nancy Drew games came out each year. Our mom would buy us a copy, either for a birthday gift or just because she knew that they were important to us. We would pop the disc into my sister's laptop or the family computer and play it together, usually over the course of a few days.
Blankets (click-replace:"Blankets")[I remember the two of us waking up at "normal human hours" on the weekend and heading to the computer to have a session continuing the mystery. I remember in the winter the bonus room being freezing, and us wrapping ourselves in blankets and only moving our arms from the warm caccoons to use the mouse or write down notes for a puzzle. We went through //a lot// of scrap paper and various pens and pencils for these games.]
Life (click-replace:"Life") [Life was so simple back then. All I cared about was [[playing games->Pokemon Go]] with my sister.]
[[Back->siblings]] I remember when Pokemon Go came out.
My(click-replace:"My")[My family was on vacation in England. For months, I had been looking forward to the game's release, especially since it was coming out in the middle of [[summer->Cruise Cabins]] vacation.]
We(click-replace:"We")[We didn't have an international data plan for our phones, so we were desparately using the hotel wifi to download the app and get online as soon as we could.]
Needless(click-replace:"Needless")[Needless to say, combined with the slow hotel wifi and the servers becoming overloaded on launch day, we weren't successful with getting in at first. However, the next day, we spent part of our free time at Alnwick Castle on our phones catching our first few Pokemon. For the rest of the trip, Pokemon Go was one of the things that we would check when we had downtime at the hotel or when we were going to be getting ready for bed.]
Whenever we go on family vacations, my sister and I sleep in the same bed. In the cruises that we've been on, we share a cabin separate from that of our parents.
(live:3s)[This past summer, we shared a cabin together again and, because my nuclear family is all introverts, instead of going to late-night mixers or events on the ship after 10 o'clock, we would head back to our cabins.]
(live:6s)[My sister and I spent this time solving the crosswords or sudoku puzzles that the ship's library had that were free to take.]
(live:9s)[Because my family is just that nerdy.]
[[Next->Roller coasters]] I've never actually ridden a proper roller coaster with just my sister. She was sitting in front of me when I went on one for the very first time; my mom was next to me instead.
(live:3s)[I have a fear of roller coasters. I've ridden two in my entire life and did not enjoy either of them. My sister on the other hand, loves coasters, and has since she was in elementary school.]
(live:6s)[For her, the adrenaline spike is what makes it exciting. She gets so pumped whenever we go to amusement parks and often leads the charge to getting into the queue.]
(live:9s)[On the other hand, the adrenaline makes my [[anxiety]] spike. I hate that dropping feeling that I get on coasters, and that anxiety makes me feel sick and (irrationally) afraid. In theory, I think about trying out new coastes, but as soon as I see them in front of me, that sickness washes over me.]
(live:12s)[When I think about that sickness, I'm not sure what's worse: the intense sinking feeling on drops or the fear of the safety restraints that I know are there to keep us safe.]
(live:15s)[I would love to go on a coaster with her someday. She would get a kick out of seeing me enjoy something that she enjoys so much, and she would probably hype me up to try to get me onto more intense rides afterward. Her passion can be quite [[contagious->signs]].]
The bed in the blue room at our grandmother's house is just big enough for us to both sleep on it.
Our cousins that live next door have some of the Gamecube games, but we haven't played on the actual console in a long time. Whenever we visit for the past decade, I find myself eyeing the cabinet of the entertainment center that it might be tucked away in. But I haven't opened it.
I don't want to know if it's really there, yet. But I don't know why. I just feel too sad to think about it. It makes me think of the [["before"]] times.
[[Back->gets old]]When we were spending hours with our cousins after mom would leave us with Mimi and Bubba for a week. We //played// school during //summer vacation// and //enjoyed// it. Extra foldable chairs and tables tucked away past the kitchen were our desks.
(live:4s)[I decided to be [[a boy->first child]] student, all four of us laughed. No one questioned it.]
(live:8s)[We would pile into the minivan and listen to the Lizzie Maguire Movie soundtrack. Bubba would take us over Bumpy Road to our cousins' house. When turning back onto his and Mimi's driveway he would suddenly speed down it and we would all scream as if we were in danger of crashing.]
(live:12s)[I don't even know who has the minivan now.]
I don't remember the last time that we really had a fight.
It was before the world tried to end. Before that blowout that I had with Dad. When we were [[younger]].
Neither of us had left home yet. My sister was [[teaching music]] through her laptop webcam while I learned how to be a college [[student]] in my bedroom. I've suffered from general anxiety disorder for a while at this point. I was diagnosed in 2020 when I started seeing a new doctor, but I had known since sometime in middle school that I suffered from it.
Ever(click-replace:"Ever")[And ever since middle school, my introverted nature has made itself apparent to me.]
There's(click-replace:"There's")[There's a difference between "I just really don't want to do this presentation" and //"Holy shit my legs are shaking and so is my voice and I am sweating so much and ok let's just get this thing over with because I want a good grade and I want to sit down as soon as possible.//" I am one of the people that falls in the latter category.]
While(click-replace:"While")[While my anxiety is not as horrific as other people's, it still affects me. A white-capped orange pill bottle sits on my desk, ready to reminder me tomorrow that I need to take what's inside.]
[[Back->Roller coasters]] I didn't come out just once.
Living(click-replace:"Living")[Living in Virginia puts me in this weird gray area. I would say it's roughly 60/40 on people being supportive of the queer community. I knew that in middle school, which led to me gradually telling my closest friends throughout the rest of my time there and in high school.]
First(click-replace:"First")[The first time I came out when in an Instagram post. I was 13, maybe 14 at the time. I can't even find it, so I probably deleted it. I needed someone to know- my cousins, some of my friends, and apparently, my sister.]
She(click-replace:"She")[She lightly tapped on my door and we talked about it. She was completely supportive of me. I wasn't sure what I needed at the time, but she had my back. She was confident that our parents would support me as well, but that ended up being a much longer process, one that I can't blame them for.]
Talking (click-replace:"Talking")[It has always been so much easier to talk to her about it. Being a child, you always sort of feel like your parents have expectations for you. I never have had to worry about that with my sister. She can be intense, but in that moment, she wasn't. She was just what I needed her to be: my older sister.]
[[Next->I'm Her Brother]]This summer was the first time we had spent together, just the two of us, in a long time.
It (click-replace:"It")[It was on my three-hour drive up to school that I really realized that my summer was over. It was just the two of us in my car. We were both starting the new school year on that Monday, in just two days.]
Then (click-replace:"Then") [Then the next Friday, we were driving to Raleigh to see My Chemical Romance. Finally- //they were back.// It was one of the best nights of my life. My post-concert meal was a chocolate shake from Sheetz and a hotel bathroom shower. A roach scurried across the corner of the room, but I waited to tell my sister about it when we were home the next day.]
(live:8s)[And now I've turned 21. And I'm no longer the little brother that she plays games with on the bonus room floor. ]
[[The Ways]]