Happy Birthday, Michael.

Thoughts | Megan Ding

Dear Michael,

You’re turning 21, I’m 17. We’ve never seen eye to eye. You’ve always had at least half a foot on me, even when you weren’t kicking my ass. It’s obvious to both of us that when I see your face, the first thing I think is, “This fucking asshole.” Even though you don’t care, you have thicker, more symmetrical eyebrows and longer eyelashes, but I guess my teeth were always straighter. Whenever I tattle to Dad, you feign innocence, so I have no other choice than exaggerate how much it hurt when you pushed me. I have twice as many X chromosomes but I will never know why. We are so different.

My friends often say we look alike, and Dad thinks we act more like each other than we do either him or Mom. I’ve always looked up to your physical strength while I cling to the memory of winning against you in a race to the front seat of the car. You’ve somehow managed to help me edit every essay I wrote in high school while I did your Grade 9 visual arts homework for you. To put it in those well ordered and defined math terms that you like, you minus me, our difference, is equivalent to me minus you. We are equals.

When I think of our sibling bond, I think of the meals we had out when I was in grade school. You would order dishes that we had never tried before and I would always get some variant of mac ‘n’ cheese. When mom would force you to give me a small bite of your dish and I liked it, I would end up begging you for another bite throughout the meal. But when I didn’t like your dish, you inevitably also didn’t like it, so we’d end up fighting over my kid’s meal. Our tastes always managed to be in sync. It was the way we expressed them that was different and would cause the conflicts we see now as reasons to dislike each other.

While I chose to go to Toronto for university and you remained at home in Kingston and I am celebrating your birthday away from you for the first time, I can’t help but feel nostalgic. Your birthday is the sweet and bitter epitome of my childhood. I enjoy the ritual of celebration (and your existence, I guess) and I feel jealous of the gifts that only you receive. I am just as grateful for you as I am for the most formative experiences of my life. Happy birthday.

Truly and sincerely,

Megan