The You That Was
Women are famous for nagging their husbands, their kids, their brothers... Don't get me wrong I am a women too and even though I swore I would never nag anyone I realized I found myself nagging you once a while. Hence, the Internet is a perfect place for anyone for expressing themselves without any unnecessary labels.
I remember the I first met you, the first time they brought you home after you had to be kept in an incubator, I was so relieved to see you. See, you did not cry when you were born so they had to take extra care of you. I was so worried because at that time a little brother was the one thing that I wanted the most in the world. I remember asking mom to go to 'Sultan Bazar' - the nearest market to go buy a little brother. You were finally home. You were the cutest baby I had ever seen. You were like a toy that I could play with, you were so precious.
After you were born things changed. There was a 'son' in the family. You started seeking all the attention. This was not bad, I just had hard time getting used to it. I started doing badly at school because mom could not help me with my studies anymore since she had to take care of you. But I was alright with it because I had a brother! I played with you and took care of you. Maybe you don't remember but I did take care of an occasional bully problem you had too. I was your protector. I feel like I still am, so forgive me if I get defensive about your girlfriend breaking you heart.
We went through many things together, happiness and sadness. I had the best childhood with you, playing Cricket, dress up, pretend house, pretend airplane crew, etc. Watching TV was a big part in our lives, we watched, we grew, we dreamed of a better life that was out there. TV showed us what was out there, waiting for us. In our middles class lives, TV taught us that there's more to life than surviving each day, it taught us how to live! We had our part of sadness in our lives too. With amamma leaving us and dad's death we had a lot to adjust. Throughout all this we realized we had become more than brother and sister, we had become - best friends. I was happy. We talked about anything, sharing everything.
Then I moved to a different continent to realize my dreams. We talked on phone often and I thought our relationship was fine but with any kind of relationship long distance does create distances in a relationship. Maybe I changed, maybe you changed or maybe our relationship needs reshaping, I don't know. The one time I visited home after 2 years, everything looked fine initially. Then I realized you have new people in your life, new relationships, new girlfriends. You were physically there with me for most of the 3 weeks that I was home, but mentally you were with your girls, texting, calling, chatting. I am not jealous, I am just saying you could have given me some quality time because there was not much quantity either. I told you that I would not know when is the next time I'd be home, those 3 weeks were important. It is said people have different ways of showing love, may be yours has changed. Mine will always be spending 'quality' time though. I told you that. I did nag you about it too.
I returned to my life after visiting home and when we talked on phone I told you that it was the longest conversation we had in the previous month, you sighed. I told you the truth and you did not want to hear it. Well if our friendship needs new definition... 'if' is the wrong choice. I do think we need new definition of our sibling relationship/friendship. And I think I need to prepare myself mentally to know that you need to split your time among many people, of whom I am one. To know that you don't have the same special place for me in your life as I will always have for you in my life. But you know what, I will always have the summers we spent watching mindless Nickelodeon cartoons on TV, and I shall cherish that. Forever.
