I remember when I was twelve walking into dad’s office and looking at your empty wooden desk. You had sat there for hours during high school, on social media, editing films or recording music for your band. Now the desk stood bare; its owner hundreds of miles away, interning in New York. I still remember my throat tightening as I fought back tears, realizing that this was the beginning of the end of my childhood. The end of fall afternoons filled with the fragrant tang of sweet gum leaves. You and Daniel throwing the football, Gabrielle and I swinging on the playset. Timeless afternoons filled with pines wrapped in fluffy, white blankets had come to a close. There would be no more tumbling outside to play on the frozen pond or stamping boot prints all around our winter wonderland. First, it was you, then Daniel would leave, and then Gabrielle. I could barely grasp that growing up and goodbyes were real.
At that time, it was easy to be nostalgic about the idea of losing my oldest brother. What I never saw coming was when, six months later, you came back home to start your own business, one which would root you in Indianapolis for nine years.
As I hit my teens and you navigated your twenties, we got into so many arguments. I had just enough wit to think I should challenge your life choices and just enough ignorance to believe I was always right. You enjoyed running circles around me and pointing out the flaws in my logic, leaving me a dizzied martyr, whose truth was above your manipulative logic. You know what? Those were some of the hardest arguments I’ve ever had. I can count few times I have been angrier or more heated. But, it’s funny how relationships are, the majority of my most special memories of you are not from those 18 years I had cried for, but from the nine after you came home.
I thought you should know six things (because you are six years older than I) that I’ve learned from you in these past nine years.
1. Generosity says “I love you”
Remember the first time you took me out for dinner? You told me it was practice so I wouldn’t be so nervous for my first date. Considering how I accidentally flipped the wobbly tabletop when we sat down, I don’t think I did so well. You also covered countless movie tickets just because you wanted to share your enthusiasm for film. Like when you took Gabrielle and me to see Interstellar. You refused to even let us see the trailer, “Trust me, you’ll love it.” I treasure the long conversations we’d have afterward about the plot and characters and your explanations of camera angles and script techniques used by Spielberg and Sorkin. Your generosity didn’t end with money. I remember my freshman year of college seeing you through the snowy dorm window as you pulled up in your fancy Camaro. You had driven five hours just to bring me home for Thanksgiving break. I couldn’t believe you would do that for me. Like all the other times you treated me, I felt so special.
2. Experiences are worth the investment
In high school, you cast me in a series of short videos, giving me a taste of life on set. You took me on a three-day road trip to Phoenix, we stopped at an old grave-yard and hunted for old stones etched with history and story. I terrified you at the Grand Canyon by trying to pick chamomile flowers off the side of the cliff. We took goofy pictures of ourselves doing backbends at Four Corners, probably causing the Navajo to shake their feathers at us basic tourists. Years later, you paid for my flight to go to Arizona with you again. We went to a cactus garden that was lit-up for the holidays and climbed Camelback Mountain on a square meal consisting of local Mexican coffee. Seriously, unprecedented is the only word that would describe a brother who would pay for his sisters’ tickets to Mexico, just because he wanted to spend time with them during spring break. Thank you for all the adventures you’ve taken me along for and for those you’ve sent me on. I still haven’t forgotten that time you told Gabrielle, Collin, and me that we were lame for not going to a Lauren Alaina concert because we didn’t want to spend money. You handed me a few waded up bills and told us to “Just go!” You were right, experiences are worth more than money.
3. Dreamers persevere
Way back when I was six, I watched a promo you made to start your own lawn mowing company. You mowed for the culdesac all summer as the “Lawn Ranger,” earning enough money to purchase your own computer. You have your goals and sometimes you get held up for a bit, but you have never stopped pursuing your dreams. I am so lucky to get to witness you on this journey. From designing websites, directing a full-length documentary, building your own company, to traveling all over the country, you haven’t become someone defined by your work, you’ve become a dreamer. One willing to take risks to one day you can become “Cruiser Alexander” – a director. You’ve shown me that chasing a dream can be messy, frustrating, and scary, but that is okay. Perseverance is the force behind a dreamer’s success.
4. People can grow
No matter how many times life has thrown curveballs at you, you’ve never stopped learning and allowing the punches to soften rather than harden you. You keep looking back and learning and adjusting. Remember when we argued for 3 hours straight about going to counseling? You were humble enough to listen and then make the change. You’re like that: you need to be convinced, but once you are, you do something about it. I was so impressed that you took a fresh look at your life, decided who you wanted to be, made goals, and started hacking away at becoming that person. If that doesn’t garner one’s respect, I don’t know what could.
5. Belief is an invaluable gift
You believe in me and my potential more than I have ever believed in myself. Whenever I call you up, I get off the phone an hour later with that kind of confident hope that I actually have something special to offer the world, that my passions will amount to something, and that my writing could be more than a 20-year-old’s delusions of grandeur. You push me, but it’s always clear that you push because you see so much talent already. You help me see the best in myself. Thank you. That’s all I can say.
6. Struggles in a relationship can be good
All those years when we’d argue and you’d run circles around my arguments frustrated me to no end. At the time I thought you were just a jerk, but through honest and painful conversations I saw that I was arrogant and believed I was always right. You uncovered ways to communicate that are more effective and helped me broaden my narrow perspective. There is always another side. (Even if sometimes you playing devil’s advocate was just to mess with me.) Through struggling to reconcile our differences, I think it’d be fair to say we’ve both changed for the better.
* * * * * * *
This spring, when you came for a visit to my campus, remember when we kicked the soccer ball for 3 hours in the afternoon? We talked about growing up, Jordan Peterson, and how to play soccer. You kept encouraging me and giving me constructive feedback. By the end of that Florida afternoon, I could kinda kick.
Thanks for always teaching me, engaging me, and loving me. Thank you for investing in our relationship. Not many people choose to do that with their free time, but by now I hope you realize, you aren’t like many people.
I love you big brother. I’m going to miss you while you’re off in Denver. Not the wistful type of miss because of what it means about life, but the kinda miss where someone you care about is 1,000 miles away.
Your little sister,
Madeleine
P.S. When you are all famous, don’t forget to introduce me to Taylor Swift
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