4 years, 129 days

In two days my little brother, also known as Matthew G. or Quick-pix McDone, moves to Austin.



When I was about fourteen I started to notice how often people would ask me the same question: “How many years apart and you and your brother?” I would tell people that we were about four years apart, or really more like four and a half, and yes, we get along just fine. They would nod while they listened and act as though that information was important.

When I was sixteen I spent two weeks at the beach with my Mom, my brother, my grandparents, and extended family on my Mom’s side. My brother sort of drove me crazy the whole time because he’d stay up all night playing with his Gameboy and then sleep all day, leaving me alone to cope with the madness. But at some point during the trip my Aunt asked me basically that same question: how close in age are you and your brother.

I gave my standard answer and then asked why she was interested. “You know,” she said, “one of my brothers and I are really good friends, much closer than the rest of my brothers and sisters. I see sort of the same relationship between you and your brother. Everyone doesn’t have that, you know. It’s special; I hope my girls are like that as they get older.”

I found this information sort of surprising. Of course we get along, he’s my brother, why wouldn’t we? But as I got older I realized that what we have is pretty rare. Even those people I know who say they get along with their siblings will say that they don’t really hang out, or that they wouldn’t hang out that much if they lived in the same city. And for every person who gets along with their brother or sister, there’s another person who doesn’t.

Truth be told, my brother is a pretty easy person to get along with. We’re shockingly alike in a lot of ways: we’re great at telling stories but terrible at telling jokes, we’re both sort of obsessive-compulsive, we like talking to strangers, and if you order us to do something we’ll do the exact opposite. We’re also very different, most notably in the way that he’s more accommodating, and much nicer, that I am, a fact which I find both admirable and frustrating – admirable when he’s driving from one city to another to help a friend, frustrating when he’s talking to cell phone salesmen at the mall to be polite.

I know why people ask about our ages: because they want to know the chances for their own kids. They want to know whether they’ll end up with a couple of teenagers who hate each other, with adults who live in different cities and send yearly Christmas cards, or with sibling who’ll be friends. But by now I’ve met enough brother and sisters who are four and a half years apart to know that’s not really what makes it work. Some people are just lucky.

But just in case, I broke out a calculator to do the math. If anyone was curious, my brother and I are exactly 4 years and 129 days apart. Maybe there’s some mysterious energy about that age difference that dictates what kind of relationship siblings will have, and it’s what made it possible for my brother and I to be such good friends.

Or maybe we’re just lucky.