"Older Bro" / Batman

It's been so many years, I can't even remember properly. The shape of your face, the smile on your lips, the sparkle in your eyes. I'm sure my perceptions of you are not only old, but blurred by the biases that my mind adds on over time. I hope you never read this, and I hope that you never find it or know of it. This blog seems perhaps a bit obsessive, and for those reasons long ago you stopped talking to me. Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised that you added me on Facebook at all, yet I hesitate to talk to you because I fear what past perceptions you had of me would resurface.

Just a simple message is all I want to give to you, and if it was the only sentence I could say to you for the rest of time, I wish you knew: You have been the most monumental change in my life.

It has nothing to do with the intricate emotion of love that stories, muses, and bards believe is the only true molder of human character. In fact, I am not even sure if what I purported to be me liking you was even that feeling of infatuation. What I am sure about, what I do know, is that you opened me up. With your outgoing personality, light words, and strong charisma, you drew me into society. I spoke up because you asked me to. I wanted to answer your questions, to prove to you that I was just as "cool," so I tried to be like you. And strangely, I found out that I liked being like you, at least in the most general way possible. I liked having myself be heard while still listening to others. I enjoyed relaxing and taking a break from schoolwork. I reveled in rebellion when I discovered that it was not a matter of pleasing my parents, but a matter of pursuing my own desires.

Without you, I honestly can say that I believe I would not be where I am today. I would be far more awkward, with little to my name and credit than good grades. You planted me in involvement, watered me with encouragement, weeded me with reality, and let the sun shine on me by extricating yourself and your shadow as my "big brother" from my life. Perhaps it was for the better that you stopped talking to me and broke off. In so many ways have you shaped who I have become, and to you I dedicate this month and this story.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - to the person whom I credit my amazing life.