When I was... ( a post about my sister)

There's this thing called NaBloPoMo, which stand for National Blog Posting Month and it's held every November and guess what you do during NaBloMoFo, or whatever it's called.  You post everyday. Yeah, I know I pretended like I was going to do that back in May, but this time I really am going to do it. Yes, I am aware that I missed the first day, but I'm making this happen for the rest of the month.

When I was younger, maybe seven or eight, my sister would make me come and sit on the bathtub when she used the toilet because she would get bored and she needed someone there with her to make it more interesting and even though I really wasn't a very interesting seven or eight year old I would oblige like a good little sister. Younger sisters just do what they are told. Always and forever. If you are a younger sister you will most likely marry a bossy man because you are comfortable with bossiness. It's all you know.  Although I must tell you, one time I met a woman who told me she was the older sister, but she acted like the younger sister and this turned my world upside down! I had no idea it was possible for the older sister to be bossed around. By the time this whole idea was presented to me I was much too old to try it out for myself, but I guess every once in awhile it could work.

When I was a teenager I fell deeply, madly in love with Bruce Springsteen. My sister did as well and we learned all the lines to Rosalita and we would scream them at the top of our lungs. And those lyrics carried us through many a good time and couple of horrendously crappy ones.

When I was in college I got myself into a  bit of trouble. It was less than a crack addiction but more than lip picking problem. Anyway,  I moved away from home for a short time and my sister came and saw me every weekend and never once judged me for my foolishness. She acted like everything was fine and dandy and never asked me any questions that would have made me uncomfortable. She even skipped going home for Thanksgiving that year so she could be with me.

When I moved away from Albany it was my sister I had the hardest time telling and even though she probably would rather I stayed there, she was kind enough to not make me feel awful for moving a thousand miles away. She found the perfect balance between telling me she would miss us, but Florida wasn't so far away and it would be fine, we would still see each other. And for all the times we've gone back to New York it's been my sister's (and her husband's) generosity that has allowed us to do that. (In fairness to my mom, she paid for me to go back once too. My goodness, I am a pathetic freeloader!)

When I loaded up the credit card with thousands and thousands of dollars worth of debt and finally told my husband about it, he looked at me and asked, "does your sister know" and when I said no, he told me to call her at once, so I did, and of course she just sat there and listened to me and then she said something about how at least I hadn't murdered anyone, but she also kindly pointed out that I should probably stop doing things like this.

My point is, I kind of like my sister a lot and I miss her very much, but she lives far away and so in order to make it through my life without her being just around the corner I pretend she is just around the corner. It helps me. I think, oh gee, my sister, who lives just around the corner, hasn't been around much. I wonder where she is, I hope she gets a chance to come over for lunch soon. And then a year or two passes and I have my sister over for lunch and I laugh until I can't breath and then we say goodbye to each other and I fall into a state of sulkiness and rue the day I agreed to move to Florida and then I get over it and go right back to pretending she lives just around the corner. It all works perfectly fine and I will go on this way until I move closer to my sister or die. Leave me alone. Let me be. This works fine for me.

And this concludes my first day of NaBloPoMoFo.