Hey Soul Sister!

My Mom always wanted a sister, she says.  Instead she had two older brothers and a younger one.  The younger one arrived when she was fourteen and was, I suppose a teenager's version of playing babydolls.  The older two, the blonde angelic looking one especially, tortured her as all good older brothers are programmed to do.  They teased and pulled hair, played jokes (not so funny to girls) and looked innocently at their mom as to say, "Could I have possibly done what she is so raged about?   Janice must be over reacting..again!"  A sister she must have thought, would be my best friend.  We could play and ride bikes and share clothes and secrets.  Summer days would be filled with giggles as we would make daisy chains and swing on the swings.  She would be by my side and I by hers.

Ah the dream of young Janice was never to be.  Until...she gave birth to her third child! She had a son, then a daughter, and then on a hot July evening a gift was bestowed upon her and the elder girl...a sister!  She was terribly ugly to begin with, but no matter.  Janice knew that she could now live vicariously through her daughters as they did each other's hair and painted their toe nails.  She could dress them alike and watch them hold hands and skip down the lane.

"Oh the baby is crying!" (whack, whack whack on the back) the older sister called with feigned concern to her mother.  Imagine a baby crying after being pinched by a jealous sibling?  And so it began.  Jan's dreams unraveled.  The sisters bickered. They would not wear the same clothes. They did not share secrets, they did not walk side by side.  They fought. They fought over their clothes and their room and, well....mostly over clothes and their room.

They drove Jan nuts.  How could they not get along when all she had wanted was a sister?  They were both terribly stubborn (eh hem and still are), and as different as can be.  One is bold and oozes confidence, one is dramatic and must be in the middle of any crowd.  One is afraid to hurt someones's feelings, one says it like it is.  One is tall, one is short.  One lives in the city, one in the country.  One has traveled the world, one wants to.  Have I made my point?

So which am I you wonder...I will leave that for you to figure out as the story unfolds.

Flashing through this childhood it seems that we spent more time at odds than as friends.  There was no one who could, and probably still isn't, anyone in this world who can make me feel the intensity of fury that I have felt when she upsets me.  I burn inside.  I want to scream!  I want to kick and scratch! 

But there were those other times... Sometimes I got to iron her hair for her!  (For you youngins that is old school straightening)  Once she asked me to go to a movie with her on a weekend night when she was in high school and I was in 8th grade.  An oh so cute boy talked to us and asked to drive us home.  She said we had already called our dad.  UGH!!  She taught me how to shave my legs on a Saturday morning.  We only got through the first leg before I realized I was going to be late for a babysitting job.  When I came home drunk one night and was battling the spins as I so desperately wanted to sleep, she taught me to put one foot on the floor.  She came to my dorm room when I first moved in and made my bed for me!  (there is even a picture of this somewhere....) When my father was late on my wedding day, rather then leave me to ride alone to the church she drove in the limo with me and told me I looked so beautiful. When my children were born, she was the first one there to greet them. And even now they know if we call Che-Che (pronounces She-She), she will come.  When my marriage ended she an her family were spending five weeks in France, a dream vacation.  She called me EVERY DAY.  For 5 weeks.  From France. 

It occurs to me that the anger that I can at times feel towards my sister is paralleled by the love I feel for her.  Corny I know.  But we are so different and in the end would do anything for one another.  We are inseperable.  Not by location, but from somewhere on the inside.  We didn't walk down the same lane or dress in the same clothes; although she could often be found IN my clothes even if the tags were on them!  She is by my side and I am by hers.  I hope that it has been enough for Jan. And I can only hope that my sister could tell stories like this about me.  I know that it has been more then I could have expected of any one person.

I have two daughters of my own now.  I watch them play and I watch them fight.  They fight over clothes and they fight over their room.  One is blonde, one is brunette; one loves to play sports, one loves to read; one loves to be on the center of a crowd, the other will always help a friend.  But when one has hurt feelings from a friend at school guess who takes her hand first?  And so it continues...

Oh, and dear sister it was I who ripped the but on those favorite jeans with the pockets on the legs back in HS.  ;)