by christina christou

Created on: January 14, 2009

I'm the big sister of three children. My sister is fourteen months younger and my brother is five years younger. As time has passed, my big sister role has been distorted, by my siblings and by my own perception of myself.

As a big sister I had some level of respect from my sister nad brother. My sister, until the age of eleven was living in my shadow. I was the cleverest, the best behaved and more responsible child. When I wasn't I was quickly reminded that I should be the cleverest, best behaved and responsible because of being the eldest.

My sister took her chance to shine when she developed into a woman before I did. She was finally better than me. She found her role in life as the opposite of me. She used her new found looks to propell her into being a rebell, being misbehaved and get praise for being all these things from boys.

I envied her grown up looks. I still looked like a scrawny boy at fourteen and to make things worse I had a severe bout of acne. I was not ugly but I sure was not a beauty queen. I felt very unhappy with my looks so I did what I knew best and hid in my books and poetry, pouring out my feelings on blank pages the ink smudging with my tears.

My brother in the mean time was a little boy doing what little boys do - riding his bike, playing out with his friends and spying on his sisters. He used to be the most annoying little brat. When our friends used to come round we used to shut our bedroom door. He used to try and spy outside the open windows. Once found we would shut the window shutters and swelter in the heat whilst my devious brother would spray insect killer through the door key hole.

Looking back I actually feel sorry for him. At the end of the day we as sisters had each other (whether we got on or not) whilst my brother was in effect alone. But he never showed his unhappiness, he just turned it to more and more ingenious ways of annoying us. He was not ever remorseful for upsetting us or getting us into trouble.

For example one day he was not getting enough attention from his antics so he threw himself on the floor holding his private parts, writhing around on the floor screaming. My Mum came running into the room shouting that we had damaged her precious son.

At eighteen I left home to study abroad. I came back to visit a year later and ended up staying, leaving my studies behind. I came back home to an absent sister and a mutant brother (he was fifteen going through that awkward puberty gwarkiness). My sister had left home and

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