Family

I have never really been close to one of my 19 year old brother. Although I have never remembered a time with out him always around. Lately it has hit me what an important relationship we have together. When we were younger, our parents were NOT the best at keeping us from fighting and we had favoritism from our parents. When I was 11 and he 8 our parents had a baby. Which made my now 19 year old brother no longer the baby. Our worlds changed completely as you can imagine. The older two, as we are commonly referred too, got worse in our fighting. I got along much better with baby brother when he was old enough to understand what was going on in the world. I then went away to college and started to get along better with the 19 year old, but worse with the baby. Today I got a phone call from my 19 year old brother and didn't realize how close we have become over the last 4 years. I really do think not living in the same domain has helped our relationship. It surprises me it took 22 years to understand the importance of the relationships around me. I probably owe this class and the family strength exercise to thank for me finally realizing what strong family relationships mean. I didn't realize how supportive my family was until we did that exercise. It has opened my eyes to no long judge my family and compare us to others around. I love my family and now appreciate them more than ever!