First impressions matter.
It’s a saying used in everything and one we are all familiar with. Sometimes we don’t even think about how others may see us, how they may feel about the certain words we choose to say to express ourselves and our feelings.
The saying doesn’t always apply though. You can make a good impression and still mess up that relationship. I made a good first impression with my brother, because I don’t know how you mess up meeting your little brother when you’re 2 and a half years old.
I did however ruin that relationship for myself over years of my life that I can’t take back. Words I said to him are those he won’t ever forget. The fights we got into will still forever be in the back of his mind.
I remember when I was maybe 6 years old, making him 3 or 4, and we were getting pictures taken of us. We both hated pictures, and my mom would often have to tell a joke or say something to cheer us up to get us to actually take a decent picture she could show the rest of our family. My brother remembers this part perfectly. My mom told me to tell him something funny to where we would both smile but instead I whispered “I hate you,” and then the picture was taken. You can’t tell on the surface of the photo how my words affected him, but now everytime he sees that photo he’s quick to point out I had said that to him all those years ago.
There were other times when I would feel like messing with him and just look for weaknesses – anything. I would point out his speech impediment, how he said “skull” like “school”. I would exclude him when I’d go play with the kids in our neighborhood or when we went to our cousin’s house.
The worst part of picking on him was he never stopped looking up to me; he thought it was normal. It was normal for big brothers to point out all your insecurities. It was normal for big brothers to hit you in the face with an automatic toothbrush so your nose bleeds.
He would always think about how he could be nice to me, so that maybe I would stop tormenting him. It never worked. No matter how many toys he got just for me when he went toy shopping for his birthday. I would never stop bullying him.
I can’t ever apologize enough for what I put him through, and that hurts. I just have to move past it. I have to live with the decisions I made out of jealousy when I was too young to realize the effects of those actions. Some days it’s easy to just move on but those feelings and those memories always come back to haunt me when I can’t sleep. Mistakes make us who we are, and my mistakes define how I try to be a big brother.
