When I was younger I was hard headed, if I had something in my mind it was really hard to change that opinion of mine. I was the youngest in my family, and I liked being the youngest because I always got what I wanted and I felt like people seemed to care more about me. When I realised a younger sister was on the way, I was angry. I wanted to keep being the youngest. I started to dislike my little sister before she was even born just for that. I had this idea that middle childs were always the least important, the oldest child was the most responsible, the youngest is the one who gets the most attention, and the middle child always seemed to be just there. Due to that, I thought people wouldn’t care about me like they used to.

I was still young, around 7 years old. My little sister, Ani, was barely a year old. I still didn’t like her by that moment, but I figured that I was gonna end up living with her for a long time, so I might as well give her a shot. For a while I just stared at her, I didn’t know what to do, it had to be something simple but I didn’t want to bore myself. I decided to grab a small ball and make it walk to her. She started laughing and tried to roll the ball back. The ball wasn’t even close to get to me, but she was smiling and laughing. It seemed like she was having lots of fun. I suddenly began to smile too, maybe she wasn’t as bad as my head forced me to think she was. My smile continued to grow knowing that the laughs and smiles my little sister was making were caused by me. I continued to do simple things like that throughout the days and a few months later I had became attached to her, and I cared about her. However I still despised the fact that she took my place as the youngest in the family, especially when I started to notice that people didn’t care about me as much as they did. When we went into family reunions, where I would see my grandparents and uncles, people looked immediately at Ani instead of me, I didn’t get the attention I used to get, and that still bothered me.

The bond between my little sister and I kept growing, I stopped disliking her and began to care a lot about her. I wanted to teach her many things I know, and introduce her to a lot of things I liked. First, I teached her how to draw. Drawing was a big hobby for me, I loved to design things like swords, and I liked to draw animals because we didn’t really have a pet, other than a little turtle named Mario. I teacher her drawing simple things, like shapes and people without them being stick figures. Then I started teaching her a bit harder things, like drawing certain characters and drawing three dimensional shapes. She seemed to enjoy it a lot and made drawing a hobby just like me. Around that time she also began to watch me play video games like Legend of Zelda, Mario Kart, and Super Smash Brothers, and before I knew it, she already had favorite characters and she could already talk about some of them, like Link and Kirby (Which were were her favorites. I asked her why she liked those two characters and she would respond saying “I like Kirby because it’s pink and it’s cute, and I like link because he uses a sword and you play his games a lot.” I noticed that I had influenced the reason she liked one of those characters, and for me, that was really special. The bond between Ani and I grew a lot during that time, we began to share the same interests and I almost felt like a teacher to her, and that gave me back the importance I felt when I was the youngest in the family.

My little sister and I became really close to the point she became a big part of me. She began to play some video games with me, simple ones like Mario Kart and Super Smash Brothers, she was barely learning how to play, and normally would finish last but she would always be smiling and having fun. She would even laugh when she was able to get in front of me in a race, or able to knock me out of the stage in a battle. A moment I still remember, was the first time she beat me in Mario Kart. She jumped up laughing screaming “YES!” She was so excited, she even began to do a little dance. I eventually stopped teaching her how to draw and let her learn by herself through practice. She started drawing a lot of characters, and even started to draw settings and animals. Now, she always carries a notebook with her where she can draw in. Although I always jokingly tease her about her drawings being “eh”, they are really good for her age, and as of now she is improving quickly.

As Ani grew so did my attachment toward her. She wasn’t something that took away what I loved anymore, she was someone that forced me to mature. I realised I was on her place once too; my sister was the youngest before, and I took that from her yet we still get along. You’re not gonna get what you want always in life, you’re not always going to be the center of attention, and last but not least, if you actually give something a shot, you might learn something from it, even if it seems like that thing will do nothing but bad to you. My little sister went from the thing I hated the most, to the sister that I can always find happiness with.