LIFE AFTER HIGH SCHOOL

Through a Siblings Eyes

by grace

 

“Wake up” our mom’s familiar voice called over both of our blaring alarm clocks.  

I heard my brothers door crack open, a few shuffled foot steps to my door and soon my room was flooded with white light from the hallway.  

“Get up looser” my brothers groggy voice called into my room.

I pulled myself out of bed and into the hallway, as I shuffled around the corner I ran face first into my obviously tired brother.

“Ready for your last ‘first day of school’?” I asked him as I shuffled my hand through his stiff red hair.  

“Oh, you know it” he uttered as he knudged my shoulder.

 

This morning ritual had been repeating itself for the past 11 years, from my first day of kindergarten to his first day of senior year.  As I got ready I looked at the framed picture of my brother and I on my first day of kindergarten, his arm around my neck like he was trying to put me in a headlock.  Our matching snaggletooth smiled, red hair,and freckles made us look like twins.  I remembered being so excited to finally go to the same school as my big brother.  Today was no different, today was the last “first day” we would experience together and the excitement was still the same.  Not that I was excited for him to go to college but I was excited to be able to get a sneak preview of senior year through his experiences.  

 

As we parked outside of Upper Arlington High School he didn’t turn off the car until we got to sing the chorus to our favorite Woo Tang Klan song.  Moments like these were the things that made us the closer.  Once we were done singing we grabbed our backpacks from the trunk and started to the front door.  As we walked through the main hallway we reminised on our summer trip to North Carolina laughing at inside jokes and critiquing each others outfits.  Once we got to the hallway where we had to split up he turned to me and said,

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, and don’t get too lost today sophomore” as he put his hand out for a highfive.

“Back at you Senior” I replied as I met his hand with mine.

 

The first couple of weeks were just the same as any other year for me, easy work, complaining about getting up early and how hot the school was.  On the other hand my brother brought home packet after packet of resources that he needed for college.  He stayed up late trying to decide on his capstone topic and working on essays.  Our mailbox was flooded with letter from colleges trying to entice my brother to go to there and our voicemail was full of unanswered calls from colleges all over the country.  It was only September and my brother was already overwhelmed with everything college, I could tell this was going to be a long year.  

 

My brother would come home everyday talking about a college he and his friends had looked into that day.  Not knowing what he wanted to major in and having absolutely no connection to a specific college his possibilities were endless.  College seemed to be the only topic of discussion in my house and it was obvious my brother was getting sick of it.  Trying to keep his grades up as well as trying to focus on every decision that came along with college was a very delicate balancing act. He would stay at school until close and then move to the library, all of his time was either spent on writing his college essay for his AP Literature class or a marching band.  I started seeing less and less of him, he was always completely engulfed in all the factors that came along with senior year.

 

Once winter break came around he had turned his college essay as well as his Capstone essay I thought that he would have more free time but I was wrong.  Once the essays were done he now had to decide which schools he would actually apply to.  Anywhere we went there was always someone there trying to persuade him to apply to their alma mater or asking what school he wanted to attend.  All of those questions even stressed me out I couldn’t even imagine how he was feeling.  Our parents were always on him about deciding on where to apply that my brother just started avoid them altogether.  One night after walking in from dance practice I heard my mom and brother listing out all of the colleges that he want to apply to.

“Wooster because of the band, Wittenberg because I know people who have really liked it there, Wesleyan because I shadowed a teacher there, OSU because it’s close by, Ohio University because why not?, and University of Cincinnati because you went there mom” he said as he listed off the schools to my mother.  That was just the beginning of his application process, watching him struggle with trying to decide on which schools to apply to made me realize I was going to be different.  I was going to know where I wanted to go before my senior year had even begun.  

 

Once he had decided on his colleges it was now time to actually apply to those schools.  The following weekend my brother spent all of his time in front of the computer in our kitchen filling out the Common App for each school he was applying to.  I sat on a stool next to the computer desk leaning in trying to see what he was doing so I could remember what to do when my time came.  After he had copied and pasted his essay into the last box he looked at me before clicking the “submit” button and whispered,

“Here goes nothing”

“You’re essay was great, you're bound to get in somewhere” I replied reassuringly.

 

The months that followed were filled with much more of my brother, he was now able to focus on school work and enjoying his senior year once again.  Although my parents were always asking him if he wanted to visit some colleges before he applied, he never wanted to until then.  One morning over breakfast he decided to announce to my parents that he wanted to visit all of the colleges he applied to, they almost spit up their food.

“You want to visit them now? After you’ve already applied?” my mother questioned.

“Yes” my brother responded

 

From that morning on for the next 5 weekends my brother and my parents would go all around the state visiting various universities.  He would come home each Sunday even and tell me all the pros and cons to each campus.  

“Wooster has an amazing band program” he would say,

“Wesleyan is such a nice campus with a lot of friendly people on it”,

“OSU is so big and I could have so many options” he said the next weekend.

“Wittenberg is just the perfect size campus” he said on the fourth weekend.

The Sunday he returned from Ohio University was a completely different story.  Instead of coming home around dinner time they were all home by noon.  

“That was awful” my brother declared as he walked by me in the kitchen, “the campus was gross and it’s in the middle of nowhere, that one is for sure out of the running”

On the sixth weekend my brother decided he didn’t want to visit University of Cincinnati and just wanted to see if he got in there or not.  His last minute decision confused me, I always wondered why that morning he just didn’t want to visit that school, its not like we had ever been there before.  Once again that’s when I knew that I would visit each of my prospective schools before I ever applied.

 

His campus tours had ended just in time for him to start receiving acceptance letters.  Woosters arrived first.  My parents and I watched as he began to crack the seal of the larger than life envelope.  The sheer size of it gave everyone hope.  As he slide the paper out of the envelope his eyes became big.

“Congratulations” stumbled out of my brothers mouth.

“Congratulations! You’re going to college!” I screamed out.

Over the next few weeks four more larger than life letters arrived in the mail.  With each “Congratulations” I could see my brothers confidence continue to rise.  One day I pulled a smaller sized envelope that read The Ohio State University, out of the mailbox, I could tell this wasn’t going to be good.  

“Thank you for your application but we cannot accept you at this time” he read allowed solemnly.

“Look at it this way, you’ve already been accepted to four schools and you still have time to be accepted” my mom reassured him.

 

As the days passed everyone, especially our mom, was anxiously awaiting some sort of communication from The University of Cincinnati.  Two weeks after receiving OSU’s letter my nervous mother decided to give UC’s application director a call.  That evening I walked into the middle of her conversation,

“What do you mean you never received it?” she questioned, I could tell she was irritated.

“You have no records of ever receiving it at all?” she questioned once again, she looked at me with an exacerbated look on her face.  She hangs up her phone and threw it down on to the counter.  

“They lost his application, how do you lose an online application?” she asked me knowing I didn’t know the answer.  Right then my brother walked in the house,

“Have you heard from UC?” he calmly asked sensing our mom’s frustration.

“They lost your application” she said fast  as if she was ripping off a bandaid.

“Oh” he whispered, “well at least I have four other schools to choose from” he said surprisingly cheerfully as he walked past us down stairs into the basement.  My mom and I looked at each other with shock, we just nodded as if silently saying “that went better than I thought”.

 

I couldn’t tell if it were becoming real to him yet that he was really going to college, but I was becoming real for me.  I began to cherish each breakfast and ride to school a little more than usual because eventually I’d be eating alone at the table and I’d be riding to school by myself.  We had been in the same school following the same path until these past few months.  While I was on Twitter he was one of the colleges websites, while I was going out with my friends on the weekends he was on the computer looking up any scholarship he was eligible for.  

 

A few days later over breakfast he once again announced,

“I want to visit Wooster, Wesleyan, Wittenberg again”

This time however, my parents weren’t as shocked just confused, as was I.  He had already been to the campuses, what more could he want to see? I thought to myself.  

“Alright” my mom replied, “We’ll start again this weekend”

 

Three weekends later when they arrived home from the last visit I followed him into his room,

“Why did you need to visit those schools again?” I questioned as I sat down on his comfortable bed.

“I needed to go to the campuses again with a different mind set, I needed to look at more specific things like dorms, food, transportation, and class sizes, stuff like that you know?” he replied.

Later that night at dinner he made another one of his announcements,

“I don’t think I really want to go to Wesleyan” he blurted out.

My mom and dad shook their heads as if they already knew that he was going to say that.

“Well now its between Wooster and Wittenberg, we’re getting closer” my dad exclaimed excitedly.

 

After dinner I could tell my brother had a lot on his mind, I couldn’t imagine having to make that decision.  I had two more years of the clear cut path through high school, my brother on the other hand was trying to figure out his way through the jungle of paths he could take.

 

It was now the end of April and my brother was getting closer to being done with his high school.  It was the night before Senior Breakfast where all of the seniors wear their college shirts to announce to their fellow classmates where they were going.  My brother still hadn’t decided on where he wanted to go and now the clock was really ticking.  He laid out handwritten lists of pros and cons for each college in front of my parents.  Under the pros column for Wittenberg he had scribbled: closer, more things to do around the campus, friendly campus, and the name of our cousin who had already gone there to ask for advice.  Under cons he had listed: no marching band.  On the next page there was a T chart for Wooster.  On the pros column he noted: band, have a plan for senior thesis and nice dorms.  On the other side of the chart in the cons column he listed: far away and boring.  

“So where do you really want to go?” our parents questioned.  After a long silent problem he broke the silence,

“Wittenberg” he blurted out.  As soon as the word stumbled out of his mouth I could see a weight lifted off his shoulders.  We grinned at each other in unison knowing that we wouldn’t be too far apart.

 

Our typical morning ritual repeated itself again the next morning, except this morning felt more important than usual.  As I walked up to the table for breakfast my brother stood up showing off his grey T-shirt that read Wittenberg in bold red letters.

“Fits you perfectly” I complimented as I sat down.

 

Although things weren’t going to be the same next year I knew that my brother and I would remain unchanged.  We were always going to be there for each other and to learn from one anothers triumphs and mistakes.  As we walked out of the house that morning he grabbed his keys noticing that something was different.  A brand new bright red W was hanging from his keys, he looked over at me and grinned.

 

Works Cited

"The Common Application." The Common Application. The Common Application. Web. 19 May 2014.

"Senior Year College Planning Calendar." Senior Year College Planning Calendar. Mapping Your Future, 2013. Web. 19 May 2014.