Over winter break my eleven-year old brother became a celebrity, and I faded into obscurity.
Hyperbole aside, my younger brother had his own “big break” over the holidays. At the beginning of December, he was cast in the ensemble of a popular, Tony Award-winning, currently-running Broadway musical. Given the extremely low success rate of aspiring musical theatre performers, this was a huge feat. A Broadway debut at the age of eleven? It’s incredible!
In the weeks awaiting the big reveal, keeping the secret was unbearable. I was filled with an overwhelming sense of pride and protection, the kind of feeling that made me want to walk up to anyone who had ever been mean to my younger brother, and say, “Hey, punk! My brother’s gonna be in a show on Broadway, performing for over a thousand people eight times a week! Take that, sucker!!!”
But unfortunately, we had to wait until all the contracts were signed and everything was official before saying anything.
Besides, it was my brother’s news. I wanted him to be the first one to announce it.
At our family’s annual Christmas party, an event filled with all of our relatives, my brother decided to publicly announce the news. As he is the first member of our family – including our huge extended family – to be offered something so exciting in the glamorous world of Broadway, my relatives were ecstatic. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins cheered like Gryffindors at a Quidditch match and crowded around my little brother.
And me? The older sister who no one had seen for four months and whose nineteenth birthday had just occurred literally two days prior? I managed to get a few apathetic queries of “Where do you go to school again?” Followed by the equally apathetic “Where is and what is Brown?”
One relative did, however, attempt to make conversation:
Relative: So what are you up to, Abby?
Me: I just finished my first semester at Brown University.
R: Oh…so what do you do there?
M: Well, I’ve been doing a lot of theatre-
R: They have theatre there?
M: Yes.
R: Oh… So will you be able to see your brother on Broadway?
M: …yes.
R: Oh good! No one would want to miss that! That’s so incredible that your brother has accomplished all of this. What an honor! (etc.)
M:
In the grand scheme of family holiday parties, Christmas 2k15 likely won’t be one that’ll be fondly remembered.
Let me make something perfectly clear – I was (and still am) extremely proud of my brother’s accomplishment. It’s something I genuinely love talking about, and will talk about it excitedly, gratefully, and supportively for as long as he’s on Broadway.
Just, you know – I’d love talking about it more if it wasn’t in a way that kinda made me feel like crap.
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