Wonderful and Terrible Responsibility

 

  Siblings are some of the greatest, and some of the worst people in existence. They make up the vast majority of the human population. Once they are gifted to you, there is no decent human way to be rid of them by your own doing. And chances are, you will know them longer than you will any other of your fellow humans. Oftentimes, the role of siblings in one another's lives is undermined in society. We are related to these people we did not get to choose, so if we spend our lives fighting with them or ignoring them, it is okay.
  The older I get, the more my influence on my younger siblings scares me. Because I am the oldest I do not quite understand the adoration younger siblings have for the older members of their nuclear family, and I never will. I see this admiration in the lives of my friends and (horror of horrors) in the lives of my little brothers and sister.
  The same way I did not ask for any of my siblings, I did not ask for their respect and love. It comes from them freely, even when I least deserve it. Or as it often seems, especially when I least deserve it. That inexplicable adoration is my wonderful and terrible responsibility. I have to give an answer for how I cared for it on judgment day. There is more than just my broken humanity. There are the lives I helped shape whether or not I meant to. The choices I make in life do not just affect me, they touch the lives of those around me. And no matter what I do, they will influence my younger siblings.