Infinite Ink

I like you just the way you are

You know how they write the years in BC and AD? Well, in my house, BC should stand for Before College. You see, in the Before College (BC) age, the family mostly occupied one physical location, instead of being scattered halfway across the world in pursuit of higher education. After College, instead of having a flesh-and-blood brother I can pinch if he annoys me, now I have a Skype brother who also happens to be a Facebook Messenger brother and a Viber brother. In short, he's a virtual brother, a voice on the telephone, a text in the morning and a smiling emoji at night. 

Yes, it's hard, but it's better than long periods of silence broken only by a handwritten letter now and then. Now, whenever his face pops up in the "people you may know" section on Facebook (we inbox each other, he follows my public posts but we aren't Facebook friends), I look at his face closely. If I'm lucky, I get a recent photo of him in the family group chat. That face. It's strange, when you're living apart from someone you know very well, and they are reduced to a two-dimensional image, you kind of forget what it's like to have them three-dimensional and really in front of you. So when they actually arrive in real life, the reaction is, "Oh, this looks just like the pictures, only it's so much more tangible." Only, it should be the other way around, with the three-dimensional reality being in your brain and the two-dimensional avatar being the placeholder in the virtual conversation. The thing is, when you chat daily with a virtual avatar, then that becomes that person's face for you. When the other person's voice breaks over the telephone, you can only imagine what their tears look like, or when they laugh, you just picture their smile. Skype certainly helps, when the connection is good. Skype video call is like a bridge between the two- and three-dimensional forms of the person, where you don't need to imagine their facial expression but you can't interact with them physically. 

I miss the days when I would walk past the room where my brother would be working out in front of the television, or simply popping into his room to say something when he would be glued to the laptop, headphones and all. I miss the times when we'd go out to grab something to eat, and we would talk about something important while sharing our fries. I'd give him the chocolate-filled end of my ice cream cone, and he would--OK, I think I'm getting too nostalgic here. I'm quite sure I finished my ice cream myself. Don't feel bad for him. He had his own cone.

Anyway, the thing about siblings is, you're stuck with the ones you have. In my case, I am stuck with the one (note: singular) I have. I like it, though. It's like an exclusive club. Only one other person knows what it's like to have the same parents. He and I occupied the same womb (though, one after the other, not at the same time.) There's just something special about looking at my brother's latest display picture and noticing that he has the same eyebrows as mine. It's different from matching my features with that of either of my parents. 

I remember one of the things my brother used to listen to, it had this line, "I like you just the way you are." I think about that line sometimes. Then I open the Messenger app and text him hello, because I still can. 

Have you ever had the experience of living away from your family member(s)?