On Sisters and Focusing

Last summer my family and I did one of those crazy eight-countries-in-twelve-days European tours. On one of our last nights in Florence, while my brother was outside chatting it up with some of the Aussies from our bus, my sister and I lay in bed looking up at the ceiling. As we lay there, we started talking; more importantly, she started talking, and I started to listen.

As an older sister, you tend to think that the world revolves around you (and for the most part it does - at least in older sister land where everything is your prerogative). Yes you get in trouble for everything that little brother and little sister do, and you worry about them like a third parent, but you also get the unfair advantage of having them at your whim and fancy. They trail behind you, pick up your toys, play with you when only you want to play (the rule is that you never have to play with them when they want to play), and help you raid the fridge or pantry for snacks when you get the munchies in the middle of the night (experience has taught me that parents are always easier on the punishment when they catch four hands covered in chocolate instead of two). So for the most part, you go through life seeing your little sister as little sister and not Jenny. Little sister becomes a role, and always in relation to - wait for it - you.

It's not like we had never had quality time before (Jenny had come to hang out with me in London after my MPhil year), but there was something about that night in Florence that caught me by surprise.

I will forever remember that night. As we lay there and she started talking, I rolled around in stitches. Her wit and humour made me laugh like I had never laughed before and I lay there utterly amazed at how she could caricature so many situations in her life. It wasn't like I had never asked before either; rather, she had never opened herself up (to us or to anyone). Long ago, somewhere on the playground, she had learned that giving people information makes you vulnerable. And vulnerability, as I soon learned, wasn't in her vocabulary. Two sisters couldn't be more different - I had built my whole life around being vulnerable (I didn't know how else to be) and she had built hers around entertaining others. I was the counselor of the house, she the joy-giver. The porous sponge and the impenetrable shell.

I hold that night in my memory because it was that night that I learned she was a real person. A person with thoughts and feelings, a person with opinions and preferences. We laughed about so many ideas and experiences and I didn't want the night to end. After 17 years of being 'big sister and little sister', I discovered what it was like to be 'Trudy and Jenny'.

There is a first for everything, and this week after a bit of a bumpy road, I picked up the phone and called my sister. She not only listened and waited, but what she said in response was so wise and beyond her years. Her advice is something that I've been holding on to, and the more I think about it, the more proud I am of the person she's become - and all on her own. I don't know if people ever fully understand what you mean when you tell them you're proud of them, but if they could, then they would understand it like this: your life changes mine, and I would not be me without you.

Posted on July 20, 2008 at 03:15PM