College Admissions Essay: Growing Together Yet Grown Apart

Grown Together yet Grown Apart
Being born two years apart, my older brother and I had always been awfully close growing up together, getting in trouble together and even sharing the same scars. But all good times must come to an end and so did ours. After spending all of the sixteen years of my life making memories with the only boy I could truly ever trust, he gathered his belongings and moved away to Hamilton to start a new life at university.
Since the beginning, my brother had always been my hero一 a person I admired, with whom I could share all my feelings, my partner in crime. Our bond was an endless road that I thought would carry on forever. I could not have been more wrong.
As a teenager, my brother had always been the immature and irrational one of our duo. Without giving it a second thought, he was ready to hurt anyone who hurt me. I still remember the day as clear as water when a grim-looking, husky boy from my grade had attempted to flirt with me in
a extremely vulgar manner. Somehow the word had reached my brother. That was it for the boy. I was terrified as my brother went after him, threatening him, on school property. Now that I look back, I find it ironic how my brother promised to keep those who hurt me away from me, but it has turned out that he has been the one to leave me behind and cause me pain.
When the move first happened, I was not paranoid about the distance at all.
He promised to visit on weekends and keep in touch. I understood that it was not going to be a child's play for him either, with the immense amount of academic pressure and the lack of family support. Obviously, the rest of the family and I stayed back in Toronto as it just seemed unnecessary for me to disturb my progress at school. Choosing my academics over my brother might have been the biggest mistake I could have made.
He kept his end of the bargain for a fair amount of time. With him visiting every weekend, life went on for all of us how it had beforeー except that there was a brother-shaped hole in my life and it seemed like no matter what I did, I could not fill it up. Surrounding myself with positivity, I tried to pretend that I would not be spending the next four years without having my best friend by my side. However, all my efforts went in vain and I became the moon surrounded by a million stars, yet always chasing the
sun. Being able to see each other within a week’s time gave my brother and I plenty to talk about. We stayed up most nights talking just like how we had when we were younger. As children, our late night conversations had been about the black figure in the closet or where our mother had hidden the chocolates which we later gobbled down. Now, our conversations were about how I was doing in my classes and how he had trouble preparing food for himself or ironing his own clothes. My heart truly ached for him.
My brother grew up being pampered by my parents. Never losing sleep over much, did he have to go out his way to achieve something. Naturally, seeing him struggle without any support made me wonder if it might have been unjust and brutal to let him move away. That was a choice my family and I had to live with.
Months passed by and eventually, the changes settled in. I no longer missed him as much and he started visiting less frequently. His visits turned from every week to every other week to hardly once a month. Watching him drift away like a lost sail, I was slowly losing sight of my brother and my mother sensed it too. She contemplated if her son was even her own anymore.
Every time we saw each other, I noticed little changes in him一 he had forgotten how to laugh and became a quiet, brooding figure who isolated himself from everyone. Never making any time for me, he was always either on his phone or laptop like an addict. Perhaps he was under considerable stress or perhaps he was growing up. Although what that I did know for sure was that I did not like who he was becoming.
Then one day, during one of his short and tedious visits where he paid no attention to me, he told me about her一.the supposed love of his life. Ordinarily, it was one of those moments when I physically felt my heart drop because my brother truly was not who I imagined him to be.
Each aspect of my brother’s life became about her and it seemed like I did not matter anymore. Moreover, my questions to him went unanswered and he no longer helped me with things such as homework. He seemed not to care about anyone but her and it angered me. He was my ray of sunshine, but dark clouds soon took over him.
I still remember when my parents and my younger siblings were away on vacation and I found myself unable to join them because of school. My brother barely visited me during that time, always presenting me with the excuse that he had to study. However when he did finally visit me, it did not take him long to leave me alone yet again and spend the entire day at the mall with his friends. I was starving when he had returned with his stomach full, but he did not care to ask about me. His selfishness was slowing eating him away.
My brother still loves me, there is no doubting that. But he is no longer the person he left our family as. There are certain things about him that I do not understand anymore. His move to Hamilton surely made him strong and independent, but selfish and careless nonetheless. I miss my brother, but he will never be that cheerful, down to earth and idiotic person ever again and that thought kills me whenever I see him.