I wrapped my sense of self and meaning around my identity as the big brother. It’s shaped who I am since I was five years old. It has been my north star and my guiding principle. It’s the outline around which I attempted to maintain my colourings.

Obviously I will always be a big brother. Obviously. But still, I’ve always kept one eye on the closing target of all my siblings reaching adulthood. When they should no longer need me. Part of me relished it; the reluctant leader who could finally relinquish control. Who had in fact been purposely loosening the reigns for years. Inviting discourse, discord, discovery.

And now I stand largely free of those old responsibilities. These young women and this young man sit around me as my peers. I offer counsel, not command.

So what next?

The slow creeping realisation that I’ve conceded the only land I’ve ever known. It’s me standing on the far shore of three comings of age, feeling washed up and suddenly finding in this some common ground with my parents.

I’ve been outshed. As I naturally should be. I feel better for it all now. Truly. But that isn’t to say it’s been easy. I opened the door to their personal truths and uncovered ugly mirrored reflections of myself. Glimpsed distortions that shouldnt be seen, perhaps. To find out you haven’t entirely been to them (for them?) who you thought you were.

What was it all for then?

I thought I did the things I did for them(!), for myself. To struggle against type and swim upstream for decades, just to see it was as likely as not to have made any discernible difference on them. I suppose it did make me a better man in the end. So there’s always that.

It’s a curious feeling to find myself in the position of fostering selfishness. Enforcing solitude. Unpeeling the co-dependency that hid in all my noble sacrifice. To realise in some ways I’ve been holding them and myself in a stranglehold, stifling our growth. Does that betray some lack of faith? I’d never considered the possibility before.

I stand haggardly on the far shore now, with these thoughts and questions to keep me company and little else. In due time they may want my assistance again in also crossing over to this side. Should I help then? Perhaps not. Is that the lesson here? To stop nudging things and instead to stay visibly afar, leading from a distance henceforth: knowledge of my safe passage ought to be enough.