All the Things I'm Not Sorry For
I can't say I enjoyed the smacking sound as a sandwich, cushioned by a plastic bag, whipped against my brother's face. It was tuna on wheat because my mom's favorite type of bread is wheat bread and tuna seemed a far more appealing lunch option at the time than peanut butter and jelly. But my brother hates tuna and sometimes I accidentally allow that fact to slip my mind as I'm assembling our lunches.
He never says thank you, so I'm justified. In making the tuna sandwich, not slapping him with it.
There's really no excuse for abusing family members with food, and it's probably especially unacceptable because tuna smells bad and the plastic bag can really hurt if I flick my wrist just right (which I don't think I did because I didn't really mean it when I slapped him). I was gesturing emphatically, I promise! The sandwich was not aimed at his face, it was aimed at an emotion that hovered somewhere near his facial region. But I don't think I'm being dramatic in saying the emotion was, is rage – full and unadulterated and fueled by puberty-provoked hormones and the Spanish exam I will inevitably have to take in 3 hours, whether or not my brother and I have a fight that ends in me hitting him with a sandwich. But he was here and so was the sandwich and even as I felt the impact of the tuna on wheat against his cheek I regretted it. He was just a casualty of my effort to try and point it out to him. To try and point out that despite our best attempts to get along, he was always going to be an annoying little twerp who wouldn't be grateful for his lunch, no matter how painstakingly I balanced the ratio of tuna to mayonnaise.
In truth, he was the one who landed the first blow. Thirteen years ago. When he was one-and-a-half and throwing balls from his Super Cool Ball Pit Play Pen at me. I never quite forgave the little giggle he emitted when I, being and the fragile and sensitive age of five, sniffled on the verge of tears. There wasn't enough room in the Super Cool Ball Pit Play Pen for the both of us and since it was his first birthday present, he got first dibs, leaving me to get hit by plastic objects of torture while the fury inside me festered. So he deserved the tuna. I think.
There were other offenses of course. A grudge is hardly justified if it is motivated by one battle; this was a war. A war that expanded beyond the house as he got older and finally (and regretfully) had places to be. He not only learned a whole vocabulary of words, but even some that could be used to poke at my feelings. Picking him up from school meant hearing from little kindergarteners just how weird it was that I liked ketchup so much (a perfectly normal condiment, thank you very much). But I had to be the big sister, the better person. I had to keep my mouth shut. I wasn't telling anyone that he liked to put peanut butter on his hamburgers, now was I? Or that he liked pizza with more meat on it than sauce. Or cheese. Or bread.
It escalated. It escalated into sleeping in my room whether or not I wanted him there (on the floor, though. It was hot and his windows couldn't fit an air conditioner), stealing my video games (not that I was playing them – or that I could even finish them. I was never very good at those), and hogging all of mom and dad's attention (okay, so he's really, really, really good at chess and math and all these things my parents can add up. I draw well, but that's about it. He could do square roots at the age of five. It's hard to compare. I taught him all the math he knows, though. We would play teacher and he would sit in a classroom made up of him and half my Beanie-Baby collection while I wrote problems on my toy blackboard and gave him homework).
I was here first and I don't see how it's fair that my parents had to have him when I was old enough to remember but young enough that he would still grow up in the house with me. Every time I want to watch TV or read a book or do anything that should be purely for my enjoyment, he has to enjoy it, too. Harry Potter isn't just mine to read, it's his once I'm done. I might as well just pick up all of my things and move them into his room. What will I ever get back for that? Will I ever get any of his hand-me-downs?
So now I'm making his lunches every day because Dad needs to get to work on time and my brother doesn't really know how to make a balanced meal. If he had it his way, we'd all be eating Halloween candy in our sandwiches (as well as probably melted into our juice boxes). It's hardly fair that I have to step up. But someone has to do it because we need to eat, Dad's late for work, and Mom is too weak to even open the fridge door to make the sandwich, let alone put it together.
I'm supposed to be the mature one, so I really shouldn't be resenting my little brother and hitting him with sandwiches (or anything else for that matter). I shouldn't be punishing him for my hormones or my Spanish exam. I shouldn't even be blaming him for the fact that he doesn't want to eat tuna, because I've always known about his hatred of any kind of fish, vegetable, or other possibly healthy food. All he is guilty of is not saying thank you.
Want to know the truth? The bit that hasn't been touched by my crazy, anger-filled, tuna sandwich-wielding bias? It comes in parts.
One part of the truth is I'm tired. I'm tired of making the lunches every day because Mom got hit by a car and can't do maternal things while she's in recovery. And I have to play the grown up. But my brother is here and he's whining and I'm bigger so I know how to be mean, even though I shouldn't.
Another part of the truth is that when I had a bike accident and needed twenty stitches in my chin (two without Novocaine, I might add), my mom couldn't even stay in the doctor's office because she gets uncomfortable around blood, but my brother was the one who held my hand and kept telling me not to cry. He's also the one who stayed awake to watch a meteor shower with me, and passed the time by watching scary moves (and ran back home with me when I were too scared to sit in the dark waiting for stars to fall).
The last part. Once the shock wears off and he lets go of his reddened cheek, I'm probably going to cry and he won't even be the slightest bit angry (well, maybe a little, but boys let go of feelings easier than girls do) and he'll comfort me while I apologize.
And he'll eat the tuna sandwich, even though he hates tuna and I hit him with it.