Brothers, where art thou?

I just slept over at my brother’s dorm so that I can wake up on time. For what? Well, are required to write a reaction paper on a cultural event in UP. While I was tempted for a moment to give my academic take on the Oblation Run, I realized my innocent eyes can’t handle that kind of exposure. So that left me with the Lantern Parade.

But … the Lantern Parade reaction paper is reserved for another blog entry. This one is about me and my younger brothers.

Roy is… Roy. Our family’s special gift and my youngest brother. He is going to be 18 in February, a day before Valentine’s. My mom had timed his birth on a salary day, or so the story goes. I miss his renditions of commercials and the sweetly manipulative ways he makes me sing for him the same song over and over and over (repeat 10000x) again. Truthfully, he is the tie that binds us together. And while part of me is hoping and praying that someone out there will find a cure for autism, I love him for what he has. Is it different to have a special sibling? I really can’t answer since I know no other kind of life.

Bryan and I were born a year and 3 months apart; my parents I think were making up for lost time since they married quite late. A decade’s worth of memories is filled with sibling conspiracies, squabbles, going to preschool together, playtime in the streets of Sampaloc, and food-sharing (agawan) sessions. Then I started living in a dormitory in highschool, and now we have grown quite apart. Well, we can still talk about anything under the sun, but we are not that close. I am sure that he has friends that he would run to first in case of trouble (the non financial kind of course), and I tend to be more open to people outside my family. This Christmas, my prayer is that this situation would change. I’d love to know this grown-up sibling more.
 
Staying at my brother’s place I remembered how different we were. He is neat, well-organized, and cleans his room everyday. The books on his desk and the shirts hanging in the closet are lined up just so, and everything has a place. Bryan can also keep plants alive, while I kill them off after a month. He is also very focused on finanancial stability from an early age, while I spent my allowance like there was no tomorrow. Bryan is also very independent and has few, but very close friends. And yeah, he has a girlfriend already. That is a huge difference.

But we are still so much alike. We both love to talk and can blabber on for hours on end about random topics. We also share the same aversion to certain … um, things. We are both Iskolar ng Bayan and have lived away from our parents. We both like to read, eat and sleep, and would do all 3 at the same time if we could. Even the way we say “I’m hungry” is eerily alike, according to one of my officemates. Blood will tell.

In short, what is this entry about? The fact that I miss the older/big brat and the younger/small brat a lot. It’s been months. Thank God for surprise vacations and the Christmas break.

And here we are, dressed to hilt on our parents’ silver wedding anniversary last October:

 

From the left, that’s me, Roy and Bryan.

VACATION, HERE I COME!