Sibling Rivalry

I was laying in bed one night thinking about something to blog about. I decided to dedicate a blog post to my little brother Jake.
My mom tells me as little kids we were good friends and played all the time. The only things I remember were fighting and getting sent to my room for it. I vaguely remember happily playing but vividly remember the fighting.
As Jake and I grew up I started to really dislike him. I always felt like my mom let him get away with much more than I got away with. We are only a year one month and three days appart. So I always thought that Jake should live up to the same things that were expected of me. But to me he seemed to be spoiled.
From age 11 to about 17 or 18 I showed my dislike for Jake and didn't hide it. My family knew how I felt towards my little brother. When all 4 of us were still at home it wasn't too bad. In sibling arguments I would always be on the opposite side as Jake and I would pick on him and tease him.
When Spencer and Aaron moved out of the house I really let Jake know my feelings. I would interupt him every time he would talk and give him the stink eye. My mom named my facial expression for Jake the Crusty Look. I never realized how mean I was to Jake until one day at dinner my family pointed it out to me.
I can gladly say I grew out of it. I feel like it happened over night. One day I woke up and just started being nice to Jake. My family was so used to me being mean to him that I had to point out to them that I had been nice for the most part, for weeks and then months until the Crusty Look and demeaning tone of my voice totally stopped when Jake was around.
We are now good friends. We even work at the same place and we help each other out at work. The other day I was getting drinks for my tables and asked if Jake would get me a tray to carry them. He got me a tray and put my drinks on the tray for me. It made me laugh inside because 2 years ago I would have demanded that Jake get me a tray and he would have told me to get my own tray.
Today after 18 years I'm suprized that Jake is not traumatized from the way I treated him. If he is he hides it well. We are good friends and we laugh at those dark years when I didn't like him.