For the longest time I knew that my oldest brother George would leave for college. It was a fact that he was leaving. But I always thought it would happen later, when the months became weeks and the weeks to days and the days to hours I never stoped thinking that it would happen later.

“When are you going to leave george?” I asked 

“I’m not going to leave till 2 or 3 Pat.” George responded 

“Alright”.

I went up to my room and sat down on my bed. It still didn’t really feel like George was going to leave for college. It just didn’t seem right, I had lived with George since I was born. I stayed on my bed endlessly scrolling through the same videos and articles I had already seen a million times. Not really thinking or doing much. I heard movement downstairs, my hour or 2 of free time was over. I went downstairs, George was all finished packing his things and was getting ready to leave. He was talking to Rob near the door, so I walked over to them.

“Hey george” I said to him

“Heya pat, I’m getting ready to leave right now”. 

“Alright, I will be down here until ya leave”

He smirked a little. 

“Sounds good,” he responded.

All 3 of us sat around talking about everything and anything. My mother and Father walked in and told us that all the things were packed. Me and my brother walked out to see that everything was indeed packed up. Both me and my brother hugged George, we knew he would come visit us in 2 weeks but that still didn’t mean it was a little sad. Me and Rob said goodbye to my brother one final time before he officially became a college student, we saw my mother and father drive to college.

Me and Rob didn’t really speak to one another, not because we were sad, but because there was nothing to talk about. I layed down on my bed and thought about what just happened. My brother was gone and probably would not be fully living with us for a while. I was not sad, but I was not happy, I felt no enjoyment from seeing my oldest brother leave, but it was not getting me down or anything. I realized that at this point I had no emotion because I still had the mindset of, it’s going to ‘happen later’ even when it did just happen. For the rest of the day me and rob talked a lot about a lot of things that were all levels of interesting and boring. And when my parents got home, George was officially living on campus.

It was not until 2 weeks later that I finally realized how I felt, George came home to visit and we all had the talks you would think we would have. “How is college”? “Is your roommate nice”?  When we were all eating breakfast laughing and talking. I realized how I felt, I feel fine. It’s when I accepted that George was not living with us anymore, and that is fine. I realized then, that it happened.