Sibling Love

Lindsay Cooke

Comparison paper

My family is probably the closest family I’ve ever seen and met. Growing up we did everything, every vacation, Disney world three times, say ‘I love you’ any chance we got. Even now whether I am home or at school I still say ‘I love you’ every time I hang up the phone with my parents even if it was the fifth time we talked that day. I still hold my dad’s hand and sit on my mom’s lap. My mom often refers to me as the biggest newborn she knows. As I am getting older I am starting to notice more how my brother and I are complete opposites. I am the wild child/social butterfly and he is the more reserved type.

My brother, Brandon, can stay in his room all day with his phone, computer and television and be completely satisfied. I, on the other hand, freak out any time I am alone. I crave attention and ultimately do anything to get it while he will take it as it comes. I guess it comes along with our ranks. I am the baby, youngest child and only girl, so of course I have the title to be spoiled and grab all the attention. He had my parents to himself for about seven years until I came in the picture, I think as the years went on he learned to be by himself. It didn’t help that at birth I needed a lot of attention due to my premature birth.

I love to be surrounded by people, life of the party and always having hundreds of friends. He has had the same friend since we moved to our house eighteen years ago. I cannot stand when my phone doesn’t ring or I don’t have plans for the day, I live on faceboook, and party almost every day if I can. Brandon is fine being quiet, does not have any social networking site and only started going out more this year. I can’t even grocery shop alone because of boredom but he’ll go to a concert alone by choice! To me that is crazy. I sing out loud no matter who is around, I dance in the streets with only the music in my head, and he just stands there looking at me like I’m crazy while he walks down the street plainly and normal like everyone else.

Throughout my schooling years I was always seen as the teacher’s favorite. Every parent teacher conference they would rave on how polite I am and how I always participate. I have teachers from daycare remembering me to this day. While my brother fell asleep in class, stayed in the back, and probably doesn’t even remember his teachers name let alone them remembering him. My life is planned. I know where and what I’ll be doing for almost every year for the next twenty years. I know I’ll be an obstetrician. I know when I’ll graduate, where my practice will be, what area I want to raise my family in and I’ve never changed that plan besides a few little things since I was six. My whole goal throughout high school was to be where I am now. My parents put me in the best private schools money could buy since first grade. I knew nothing but excellence and that excellence is the only thing can be achieved.

Brandon is the total opposite. He has no idea what he wants to be even at the age of twenty five now. He’s comfortable at his job making roughly seventeen thousand a year. He likes being in his tiny little apartment by himself. He stopped going to college after about two years. Growing up he attended public school by choice and battled with ADHD with no medicine until age sixteen. I guess you could say we are nowhere near each other. Me, with my plan and him floating through life comfortably. My brother is something of a slacker.

Surprisingly as we got older I got in the most trouble. I was the rebel; skipping school, stealing and lying through almost everything and anything. I did pretty much anything and didn’t think about the consequences, I couldn’t grasp the concept of that word when I was younger. I got punished but ultimately would cry my way through it because I knew I would eventually get my way. Brandon basically followed the rules and didn’t do anything surprising besides fail classes in school or be late for class. He never went out or hung out after school. So when my high school chance rolled around my parents didn’t know how to handle going from non-sociable to non-stop social hour. I went to at least five proms a year for every year of my high school career. I was constantly abusing the curfew rule, calling to get extra time, disappearing after school just to not even have to ask if I could go out.

My brother and I constantly compare each other. When he was seventeen my parents pushed him to get his license and when he finally got it my dad gave him the Mercedes Benz. Alternatively when I reached the age of sixteen I quickly took my permit test and started begging to drive any chance I got. I only drove my mom’s car a couple times until she crashed it and got a nicer car and I was left to drive my dad’s work truck. I was pissed! After I got my license I expected a nice car like my brother. I didn’t receive a car until five months after I got my license and it was far from a Benz. It was a ford explorer. Maria quickly broke down about three months after and I got another car, it still wasn’t a Benz. It was a Hyundai! Yet again I was pissed. I constantly bring up that my brother got a Benz for his first car and he constantly brings up the fact that I already had two cars and am on my way to the third before he even got two.

Brandon and I may seem like opposites but you would never know it if you see us together. Although we have different hobbies and ways of approaching life, we remain close. We have the same sense of humor, the same ways to act in different situations, a similar laugh and we both look like our dad. No matter how different we are we could never deny our sibling bond, although I’m sure sometimes he would like to say I am not his sister to most people. No matter how much I talk about him being unproductive and a nobody, I love him and he’s my brother and I guess I have to live with him…