A Tale of Two Sisters

Project 365, Day 219/365

I always found it curious, fascinating even, that two people could come out of one person and be so unlike each other. That’s my sister and me. Separated by three years and a world of differences. For the majority of our childhoods, we just circled around each other, never really in each other’s orbits. Three years was just enough of a gap to be monumental when we were 8 & 11. 11 & 14. 15 & 18. Freshman in high school…senior in high school.

My sister and I are different in nearly every way you could think. She’s teenie tiny. Me? Petite, but I’ve been aware of my extra padding since I was in elementary school. My whole life spent making myself smaller. Her whole life likely trying to look bigger. There was exactly one year where I fit into her clothes. I was in the 6th grade, she was in 9th. What a glorious time that got me into so much trouble. I always joked that I got ALL the chest she didn’t. All the hair she didn’t. All the chub she didn’t. It’s truly as if my parents had a full set of characteristics and features and split them directly in half for their girls. 50% for me. 50% for my sister. The only thing we share is our hair color and a name. Arlyn being my first, her middle.

I grew up with a book permanently attached to my hands, glasses constantly sliding down my nose. She always had her thoughts on boys and clothes. My sister is someone who rarely cared what people thought of her. A free spirit. She’d walk around the house in a towel post-shower, singing at the top of her lungs, her true self, while I’d duck my head out of the bathroom door, check my surroundings, and dash on over to my nearby room. Hiding my body was an Olympic sport for me, particularly after I “bloomed.” Sing in front of people? HA YEAH RIGHT.

Many of my memories of us as kids involved me begging my sister to hang out with me, to play games with me, to let me go somewhere with her and her friends. There’s a home video somewhere of her and I, arguing about going to watch the movie The Jungle Book (yup, the one that came out in 1994). She wanted to go with her friend, I wanted to tag along, and nothing was going to ruin her day more. I recently recalled another time to Charles about trying to sneak into a music video she was making with another friend to Mariah Carey’s song Emotions. (Side note, my brother grew up wanting to be a movie director, so we have A LOT of home movies, or at least did. Scripted, stop motion, music videos…so many gems. He did all the scriptwriting, filming, editing, music overlay.) You could see me peaking into every scene, where my brother would have to cut because she’d be yelling at me to go away. She wasn’t mean, she was just…older. Cooler. Her little sister cramped her style, obviously.

While I was never overly down on myself growing up—I luckily escaped much teenage angst—I did often look at my sister, wishing I had her looks. Nothing makes a 15-year-old feel more like a potato than hearing “wait, THAT’S your sister?!?” come from the mouths of your boy schoolmates. She was skinny. Pretty. Stylish. Many things I definitely wasn’t (skinny) or didn’t feel (pretty).

It wasn’t for at least two decades that my sister told me she used to look at me, growing up, wishing she had all the things I had. “Smart.” Chesty. “Good at things.” We never see the things in ourselves other people see in us, do we? This reminds me of a social experiment I read about once. An artist would sit with their back to their subject—a woman—and have them describe themselves so they could draw them. Then, they’d have friends or family members describe the woman for the artist to draw. The drawings would turn out totally different. The more beautiful of the two always being how the friends and family described the woman. Isn’t that something?

Now, as adults, me into my mid-30s, her nearing her 40s, I can’t imagine my life without my sister. If a day goes by that I don’t hear from her, I feel a bit incomplete. When I found out we were moving to LA, she was the person I dreaded telling the most. I avoided it for days…weeks. Every time I’d call my mom, the first question out of her mouth would be: “Did you tell your sister yet?” Everyone knew it would shatter her. No one envied me for having to share that news with her. The years that I lived near her in South Florida, watching her boys grow, were some of the best in my life. I couldn’t bear to face her in person, so one day, with breath bated, heart pumping out of my chest, I called her to drop the “we’re moving across the country” bomb. That was…not easy.

Who would help her with all her house projects? Who would she call from the produce aisle at the grocery store to check the difference between a cucumber and a zucchini? Who would tinker away on the twins’ Halloween costumes or school projects? How did two people who were like ships passing in the night growing up become so dependant on each other, emotionally?

We, of course, survived. Charles and I have been here for three years. She’s found her own. She still calls me with random questions on the regular—”How many tablespoons are in a cup?” “If the box says to cook in a non-stick pan, can I use glass?” “What should I do with this blank wall?”—heck, Charles is essentially my nephews’ private tutor. Things I tell her “you can Google this, you know” to which she answers “but you’re my personal Google.” We may not be near, but we’re never far from each other.

See you tomorrow, FOAS.