Two Roads Diverge | Growing Up With My Sibling

In the past, I’ve joked about having no friends. This is a massive oversight on my part and is a huge black mark on my goal of pushing for intellectual honesty (though I can’t say it won’t happen again, at least on accident).

It’s true that throughout my school years, I’ve had trouble connecting with my peers and forming meaningful connections. However, there is one person who I DO have a deep, meaningful connection with, one person I consider my best friend.

My brother.

They’re about 19 months younger than myself, born on December 6, 2002. At the time of me publishing this article, they turns 19 tomorrow. I thought that this would be a good time for me to write about what it’s been like, having them in my life.

In our early years, Zeke and I had a (mostly) pretty typical sibling relationship. We both liked playing on the playground across the street, we watched the same TV shows, and we played board games and card games together. We got into fights, but quickly made up afterwards. We went to the same school every year except one, so we were almost always together (even if we were apart by two grades).

But right away, I could tell something was different about them. They had no trouble making friends, whereas our mom had to go to the school once or twice a month to ask the teachers to do something about the kids who were bullying me.

Also, as we grew up, we developed different interests. We had some things in common (like playing Mario Party almost every weekend), but they started to become interested in tech-related things (which didn’t interest me) around the same time I took a liking to magical girls (which didn’t interest them).

On top of that, the longer Zeke and I were involved in competitive track and field, the more a part of me began to resent them. As we both hit puberty, I grew weaker, gaining weight and becoming a slave to my hormones, but they just got stronger and faster.

As I faltered a bit in my age group but they managed to put forth better and better results in his, I could feel our dad start to like them more than me. I’ve brought this up a few times with Zeke, to no shortage or arguments where they insisted I was being ridiculous. Was I? I really don’t know.

And this is what started to drive me away from Zeke, for a brief period. On the outside I interacted with them the same way as I always did, but on the inside I was jealous. They had no problems interacting with people, or sports, or school, they were… perfect. And I wasn’t.

I soon grew out of this mentality, after some heart-to-hearts with they, where I learned that Zeke also struggled with his own insecurities and mental health problems. They had been going to a therapist and I hadn’t even known!

All of this turned my worldview on its head, and now we’re closer than ever before. And I’ve had some time to think about all the things I appreciate about Zeke.

I’ve always appreciated their sense of humor, especially since it’s different from mine. My sense of humor is more long-winded and uses in-depth observations, whereas they can make me laugh with a simple one-liner. Together, we’re absolutely hilarious- to us at least. To an outsider, we’re probably borderline incoherent.

Zeke can be a very chill person to hang out with. We’ve always had a habit of them playing, say, Mario Kart Wii (which I’m no good at), while I sit and watch. While they play, we just talk about whatever, and it’s always my favorite part of the day. They’ve known for a while that I’m not as good at video games and might not ever be, but it didn’t matter. They always understood that I just like to watch.

Zeke is also a very trustworthy person. Some people’s friend groups are echo chambers, but I guess you could call Zeke the “brutally honest” type, but that’s not exactly accurate; they’re more into honesty than the brutality. They’re all about compassionate honesty- not just telling you what you want to hear, but also not just to tear you down.

This is why I can always go to them when I’m planning out what I want to write in an article, or just when something’s on my mind. If I have a bad take, Zeke won’t hesitate to tell me, but they’ll always elaborate on where they think I’ve gone wrong. This has led to several productive discussions, and we’ve managed to change each other’s minds on a lot of things.

But the best part about Zeke is that they always encourage me to follow my own path, even when they don’t realize it. Our lengthy conversations were actually a big inspiration for me to start writing here on Medium. Zeke reads every single one, even if they aren’t personally interested in the subject matter. As I previously mentioned in “I Didn’t Sign Up For This”, they’re the one who helped me through my feelings leading up to quitting competitive sports. Without them, I wouldn’t have the motivation to do a lot of things. With them by my side, I feel capable of anything. Maybe I should work on getting better at video games!

So thank you, Zeke, for always cheering me on at my best and worst. May you see your future endeavors turn out for the best. May you continue to shape people’s lives for the better, the same way you did for me.

Thanks so much for reading. until next time, stay on the hook!