By the time my parents divorced and at 8 years old, I'd gotten used to the idea of being an only child, and I liked it.
Now I've suddenly found myself to be a big sister, and I have no idea what to do.
Sure, at 5, I might have begged my mom for a baby, but really I just wanted a Barbie.
Several years later would find me in our apartment kitchen-smashing a doll against the edge of the counter, entranced by this morbid fascination to remove its stubborn head, and then later, steaming its chubby plastic face and then prying the head off with a butcher's knife forcefully nudged into the groove between the neck and chin-so it's probably a good thing my mother did not take my request seriously until after I'd outgrown this phase of my life.
Unfortunately, I had also outgrown the desire for siblings, so at 15, I had a quarter-life crisis when my mother popped out my half-sister, who would inherit two of my most desired traits: tall genes (my stepfather is 6'2") and a built-in "Ly" at the beginning of her name (I was born Lisa and was L-E-E-S-A for a few days in the eighth grade... embarrassing... don't want to talk about it).
Until Baby L reaches that tweeny age where somehow I become "cool" out of default, we're likely only to share a mutual resentment for the other's existence, her because when I return every summer I steal her parents' attention and me because she likes to unroll my chapsticks and snap off the ends.
Even through this summer, I have considered myself an only child in essence, but since arriving and settling into London, I seem to have collected a baby British brother, whom I affectionately refer to as my fresher (English English for freshman).
The problem is I'm not so great at the whole adjusted-human-being thing myself, which makes me an unlikely role model for someone trying to make lifelong friends, define himself and adapt to a new, more independent environment.
Once, a peer told me he likes to watch baseball games and play golf in his free time. I said I like to follow and observe strangers and write random thoughts on Post-It notes and stick them to parking meters and the inside covers of library books.
"Um, I'm not sure if any of that is legal," he said. And then he had to go check if he'd left his oven on. Pity.
But my fresher seems to think I'm a proper adult, because I can do stuff like make macaroni and cheese.
He seeks my advice as he tackles daunting tasks like that first load of laundry. With my aid, the washer ate his money and the dryer ate some socks and spread towel fuzz on everything else while leaving the rest of the load soaking wet.
"Sasa, is laundry the worst thing in life?" he asked me as he dragged his clothes, 10 times heavier from water weight, up the staircase.
"Well... genocide. But laundry is a close second."
Wisdom.
He doesn't seem to judge my ineptitude though, and instead continues to seek what I've heard some people refer to as "friendship."
Part of me knows my fresher's desperation to be friends is out of that fear and loneliness I also felt as a freshman, but even as he describes his homesickness, his longing for his old friends, his worries he won't find new ones, I can't help but feel jealous.
I want to start over, to be 18 again, to be back at that point where everything is fresh and new and possible even if it's scary and different and intimidating, that time before being alone felt routine and life, a bit pointless.
Even if my own experiences are the worst example, I'm willing to fake it for my fresher. I reassure him his fears are normal, expected and temporary and allow him to force me out of my comfort zone (my room) and into a bar or party or just, you know, outside.
In the process, all in an effort to encourage him, which I think he knows, I've had to interact with other people, not following 20 feet behind them on the street with Post-Its in my pocket but opening my mouth and saying words, and in this way, I think my fresher is looking after me too.
Lysa Chen is a Trinity junior. Her column runs every other Friday.
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