Blog

The funny thing about getting older is that sometimes you don’t realize you’re getting older. Sometimes, it has a funny way of sneaking up on you. 

Sometimes, you don’t even realize that time is moving at all. I mean, if I’m honest, I’m an almost 40-something-year-old with the mindset of someone in their early 20s. And quite honestly, I think that’s probably how most adults feel. We’re all stuck in these aging bodies, yet we have the mindset, thinking, and perspective that can still bring us back to adolescence. That’s what makes this whole idea of aging and having a sibling with autism complicated. For my sister Kelsey and I, our relationship is stuck in her early adolescence. 

In some ways, we are forever kids because the nature of our relationship is that we’re playing. I’ve mentioned this before in another article, but Kelsey and I still carry out the same isms (such as pulling her thumb out of her mouth for the 10,000th time and making her laugh), the same routines, and the same combination of words that we’ve been using for the last several decades. Even though I’m older, and she’s older, and everyone else around us is older, we are still going through the same routine we’ve done all these years. It’s not just with me, but it’s with my mom, dad, brother and everyone in our family.

I’m sure there was a time when I thought I was too cool for the routine. I’m sure there was a time when I thought I had aged out somehow. You can feel like you’re leaving someone behind in many ways, like you are leaving that sibling behind. The routine is what they know. It’s what they cling onto until you can’t let something like pride or “I’m too old” to get in the way of what the routine means for your loved one. 

One of the most complex parts, though, is the idea of aging and having a sibling on the severe end of the spectrum and realizing that this may be the extent of the relationship. There’s a moment when you realize that no matter how hard you try to look for reassurance that you’re making progress in your relationship, or try to introduce new things, you know that routine may be all you have. So you think about things like, ‘will I be pulling my thumb out of my sister‘s mouth and listening to her cackle when she’s in her 70s?’ And the answer is probably, yeah, I will be doing that, realizing that you’re never going to know or relate to things in ways you do with other people, and that’s okay. That’s the way that it needs to be. In many ways, getting older and reflecting on time passing reinforces that it’s not about you. It’s about them and what they need. 

For me, it’s a tricky thing. There’s something that feels unsettling about it. There’s something that feels a bit heartbreaking about it, too. As compared to other relationships in my life, the depth of my relationship with my sister does not change with age or more time. My parents give my sister a hard time when she comes up to me and will do one of our isms like “get that thumb out of your mouth.” To be honest, I don’t know how we started this. I don’t know the origin stories of why this is the powerful thing that we share, but we just do. Time and time again, my parents will look at Kelsey and ask her to stop. But I know it won’t because it’s what we have. It’s our connection.

And it will be our connection for this day and all of our days, no matter how many gray hairs each of us has. 

Erik James Rancatore is the Agency PR and Media Relations Director for Bader Rutter. His career has spanned marketing, communications, branding and public affairs, where he has helped shape and lead campaigns from the recreational boating industry to nuclear science and state government for well over a decade. He holds a M.A. in Media and Communications from Northeastern Illinois University.

He and his wife Megan have been together for over 18 years, and they have two children that they adore, Flynn (6) and Poppy (2). Of course, he’s also the proud big brother of Kelsey.