Being the Little Sister

I find myself thinking about my big sister  a lot today.  Had to capture some of my thoughts:

The little sister- that was me.  I can remember looking up at my big sister and wishing to be just like her.  Why couldn’t I have green eyes and long, curling hair?  Why were my eyes the color of doggie doo and my hair non-existent?  She could read, sew, play piano and sit still.  I could do none of these, well, okay, I could sort of play the piano, but that went along with the sit still thing, which I failed at miserably.  She could also be quiet and polite.

I wanted to be her, or just like her but I knew it wasn’t possible.  She got the first Barbie doll, the first day of school; in my little girl existence it seemed she got to be first at everything.

I was a daydreamer, a talker and mischievous.  I wandered off in the woods once, scaring my mother and father to tears.  I really just wanted to go to the neighbors, but in our neck of the woods that was a quarter mile away through dense forest. While my big sister made cookies with Mommy, I usually made a mess in the mud in the yard.

I am pretty sure my constant chatter drove my parents and my big sister to despair.  I don’t recall exactly, but I expect I did not sit still in church, that I blurted out inappropriately loud questions.

People mistook me for a little boy when I stood too close to my sister.  She was much more feminine than I was with that hair, those eyes and her shy smile.  She was truly the little lady to my bull in a china shop.

Where she was patient and determined to do things well, I remember always wanting more- wanting to know, wanting to explore, wanting, wanting, wanting often what I could not have and too impatient to finish any task well.  Then as I grew older, I remember discovering that sometimes there was a way  to make things go the way I wanted to if I worked hard enough, talked loud enough, practiced and practiced and practiced.  Sometimes this meant pushing someone out of my way. Very often, this became my big sister, the closest obstacle in many of my paths.

I cannot imagine the hurt and embarrassment that my loud, pushy ADHD self caused my sister along the way, but I know it did.  She often set the bar in my little girl mind, and that bar was my challenge as I imagine it is for little sisters everywhere.

As we grew older, I did not have the intuition to tone it down, could not see the damage that could be done in constantly hurting someone’s feelings.  To me, I was still the little sister, the pudgy tomboy to her slender beauty.  But I could run, and I could sing loud, I could tell stories and I could draw- I had discovered that I was better than her at these things. I had made a mental decision that If I wasn’t good at it, I would walk the other way leaving to her forever the baking, sewing, piano playing, babysitting, long hair and thin waist.

We grew up, grew mature and became good friends, but I know that little sister never completely disappears.  I continue to talk loud, run fast and jump from thing to thing, and of course try to always climb higher.  My big sister knows me well.  She knows my character, she knows my restlessness. She sees my wit and sarcasm, my pushy determination and in the darkest of moments, she senses my little sister neediness.

I love my sisters- yes, I have a little sister too who I will write about sometime, but she was much younger, so our relationship is very different.  My big sister was the other pea in the pod of my childhood, and I can imagine it was hard to be trapped in that role as I kicked and wiggled and wormed my way forward regardless of the tightness of the pod.

Recently someone posted a picture of two little girls in matching dresses. The big sister had darker, longer hair and was scowling furiously.  The little sister, with blonde hair stood next to her and her smile was beaming. The caption was, “I’m dressed just like my sister”.  It made me laugh and at the same time I recognized that it could easily have been a picture of my big sister and me.  Matching outfits always thrilled me, but I am pretty sure my big sister was not as overjoyed.

Sisterhood is not for the faint of heart. But I will always be grateful that my big sister accepted the role that was not her choosing.  I will always be grateful that I had a playmate, a second mother, a bar setter and a friend in the midst of all the animals and woods that we called home.