Dear brother,
You are the only sibling I have ever had, and you’ve been my best friend for my entire life. Some people find their other halves in significant other’s, childhood friends or their parents, but I found my match in you. Almost all of my favorite memories have you in them, and you’re the person I’ve spent the most time with on this planet (whether by force or by choice, it’s still sentimental). We have gone to the same schools together for our entire lives, and we thought that was going to change when college came around, but it didn’t. You came to UCLA and then I followed you here. I think it has been the best decision of my life so far, and I owe part of it to you. We had two more years together here, two more years of getting dinner together on the weekends, two more years of quoting movies that no one else ever gets, two more years of being us. Then you graduated and left me here to fend for myself, which I am more than capable of doing, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t hard. Eventually you had to graduate from college and move on with your life, but you chose to move on to something that I wasn’t prepared for.
I remember you calling home constantly during your first year at UCLA, asking our parents if you should join the Army ROTC or not. You were so interested in it, so ready to commit to something bigger than yourself, but I wasn’t ready for you to commit. I remember you asking our parents and myself to write you letters and tell you our opinions. I wrote mine on the scratch paper notepads that we keep by the phone at our house. I begged you not to do it, told you that it was dangerous, declared that no scholarship was worth dedicating so many years of your life to after you graduate. I was scared, and, if I’m being truthful, I still am. I didn’t want to lose you, in any sense of the word. You decided to do it anyway, but it was your life and who were we to stop you? I remember crying the day you texted us saying that you had signed the papers.
We spent as much time as we could together with those extra two years, and now we’ve been apart from each other for the longest amount of time in our entire lives. I miss you, but sometimes I feel bad for missing you. You deserve to live your life the way you want to, to explore all the world has to offer, to grow into the person you were meant to be. I am proud of you. You have become strong: strong hearted, strong willed and still a bit too strong minded (you get that from dad, so I’ll let it slide). You have learned what it means to give yourself up to something bigger. You know that you don’t actually win in life if the people you care about don’t cross the finish line with you. We come around the mountain together, right? Your heart has grown three sizes. You want everyone to be the best that they can be, and if they don’t think they can do it themselves, you’ll stay with them every step of the way until they get there. You know what it means to never give up, on yourself or those around you. You are brave, dedicated and brilliant. You’re forging your own destiny, one that I never expected.
I wish that you had never left or joined the Army, but I know that’s only my selfishness on the surface talking. You have gained so much, and earned even more. I wouldn’t want to take any of that away from you. I can’t even imagine what your life would be like if you hadn’t made the choice you did. Whatever it would have been, I feel like you wouldn’t be the person you are now, not as happy or as driven. It would just be simpler to have you near me. It would be nice to know that you would always be safe and that I had nothing to worry about, but that wasn’t the life you chose. I have accepted that (kind of). It may never be easy, but it has become easier, and that’s enough for me right now. You have become so many things, and will become so many more, but, above everything else, you’re still my other half. We’ll always be connected in that way, our telepathy will never die (neither will our movie quotes). Even with all of the changes and the huge amount of distance, we’re still coming around the mountain together, and always will be.
Love always,
Your favorite sister