growing up is rough, but better than the alternative.

The news hit me like a freight train. I was the first to know; my brother showed me the ring alone when we were visiting our grandparents.
My face said “oh yay,” but my insides were screaming.
My brother I grew up with, that I heard so many times say that girls are dumb and gross, the brother that used to want nothing more than to torture me with rubber snakes?
We played Legos, he taught me to play hockey, he made a guy's nose bleed for making me cry. This brother is starting his own family?
I'm not ready for this. We can't be adults yet. I had a hard enough time when he graduated college and got a full-time job as an elementary school teacher.
Don't get me wrong, his now-fiancée is awesome and perfect for him. It’s just a fear of my brother and I doing adult things. I've been having to do a lot of adult things lately adjusting to living on my own and taking responsibilities, and now he is starting a family. He’s only five years older than me, and she is a senior in college. Will this be a decision I will face in the coming years? Marriage!? Committing my entire self to one person? It seems like a lot at this age, but then again, a few years ago it seemed like I had to pick a career to last me a lifetime.
What really scares me is he’s creating a new idea of home for himself, like Zach Braff said in “Garden State.” It’s a cycle. Soon I will not be what he thinks of when he thinks of “family.” He will think of his wife and children.
My brother and I are very close. He takes me out with his friends, we go to bars and restaurants and concerts together. I know our parents have committed their lives to us, how it seemed like they gave up all their time for us. Now my brother will be giving up time for his new family. He won't have time to have fun with his lil’ sis.
This brother that chugs egg nog and plays card games and calls all my college friends “hot coeds.” This brother that I am closer to than anyone else. This brother will be a different person.
But it is a fact of life that I must accept. We are both growing, and soon I will have to take on the roll of Auntie Meg. And although we may not have as much time for each other, I know that we will still be as close as we are now.
He will always be that boy that tortured me as a child, and grew to become my best friend as an adult. He will always be the crass, joking older sibling. He will always be my definition of home.