From Love, Not For Love

For the first 16 years of my life, I was the youngest child. Then, just two months shy of my 17th birthday, I had to learn how to be an older sibling.

Being an older sister is not something I ever thought would be a reality for me. Frankly, I didn’t want to be a big sister. I selfishly liked being the youngest, but really, I just had absolutely no idea how to be an older sibling.

I struggled a lot and worried that I wouldn’t be a good big sister. I didn’t know what I was doing and was sure I was going to fail.

Luckily, my saving grace was my two older brothers, who always made being an older sibling look easy.

That’s the thing about them: they always made it seem like being my older brothers was easy, even when I know it wasn’t. When my little brother was born, I quickly learned that the key to being a good older sibling is just to love your younger sibling.

That was what they made look easy: loving me and being there for me. In fact, so many of the people in my life have always made me feel like it was easy to love me. That I was worth loving just for being who I am.

So then, why do I find myself constantly convincing myself that I’m not good enough?

There have been moments in my life where I have, quite frankly, hated myself. I’ve hated how I look, how I’ve acted, who I was. I’ve thought I was a bad person, a bad sister, a bad friend, and a bad daughter. I’ve cried and cried and cried and when the tears ran out, I still hated myself.

In those moments, I can’t imagine I was a very pleasant person to be around. It hurts to think that in the midst of me struggling internally, I was potentially treating those around me poorly.

And yet, without missing a beat, everyone in my life has shown me love and kindness and gentleness even when I didn’t show it to myself.

I’ve often thought that love was transactional, that I had to show to others that I was willing to do things for them, be there for them, and constantly prove that I was worth them loving me back. Many times I have felt like I’m not deserving of love or being cared for if I don’t do enough for the people I care about. Simultaneously, I couldn’t imagine not being there for the people I care about only because they don’t do “enough” for me. They don’t have to do anything for me, except exist, and I would care for them just the same. It took me a long time to realize that people care about me just because of who I am.

Every time I’ve hated myself, I didn’t magically stop hating myself. As cheesy as it sounds, the magic, instead, was the love that people showed me.

It reminds me that time and time again, they’ve shown me that I am allowed to have flaws and still be cared for.

The magic of being loved is in the small moments. It’s my best friend secretly hating the idea of me moving to a different state, but still sending me TikToks of apartments she finds. It’s my oldest brother checking my writing over and over and over. It’s my middle brother remembering that hamlet is my favorite Shakespeare play and buying me a copy as my Christmas present. It’s my friend in vet school, drowning in schoolwork, still sending me cookies and flowers when I’m having a hard time. It’s my mom making me coffee to take to work every morning. It’s my dad trying, in his own way, to strengthen our relationship.

It’s my little brother acting like I’m the best thing since sliced bread, even though I’m convinced I’m doing the whole “big sister” thing completely wrong.

I worry about my little brother often; I’ve come to learn that’s part of the job. I hope that he never feels like he isn’t good enough. And, of course, the same for all the people in my life who I care about. I hope that I do at least half as good of a job as my older brothers have done for both myself and Jesse.