Safe travels little sister

By the time I post this my sister will be on her way in her Volkswagon making her decent from Friendship, ME to Portland, OR with many stops to see friends and places along the way.

I couldn’t be prouder and I couldn’t be more jealous.  I never did anything like this---after college and a few poorly timed relationships I finally met the love of my life and we made our own decent around the coast of Maine before settling into where we are now.  I always said I wanted to travel a bunch before I settled down but as is often the case it just didn’t happen.  I don’t have regrets, but I do have lust to do just as she is doing.  But life threw me other things. 

In the past few years the age gap between my sister and I and the life choices we have made seem gigantic.  I am the mother of a one year old boy, and a Stay at home mom who runs her own food wagon.  My sister got her masters in Social Work, made some kick ass friends in New Hampshire---and then decided she needed move.  I find myself full of animosity sometimes when I talk to her.  Her world is so different then mine…I always find myself rolling my eyes when she tells me she is so tired, or overworked, or stressed, or sad about a breakup, or doesn’t have money.  I find myself trying to defend my way of life to my 27 year old sister.  Which is really so silly.  We are so completely different although very much the same.

I will never be able to explain to her until she has her own (if she makes that choice) the way it feels to curl up so close to my baby boy as I try to get him to sleep.  How by holding his little hand and touching his head I feel complete.  How I never felt complete like this before.  How when he is sick, or sad It makes my heart hurt.  I will never be able to explain how I can simultaneously want to be around him all time time, but also crave my own time and space.  And the second I leave him I think about him.  How I never knew Love until I held his body in my arms the day he was born.  How I felt more whole as a woman when I pushed him out in my living room.  How I would give up my life in a second, for his.

She may never be able to explain to me how the wind feels as it hits her face as she makes her way across the borders.  How she feels free and satisfied and a bit scared.  How she appears brave and happy but sometimes feels lonely and sad.  But always excited.  She will never be able to explain to me the great food she eats across the way and the long lost friends she gets to hugs, and the strangers she will meet that can turn into life long friends.  She won’t be able to explain to me the adventure, and angst, and happiness, and every wonderful scary second of it. 

She won’t be able to explain it to me but I will try to feel all of it through her because is my sister.  And when she is driving me nutty texting to her new love interest, or best friend (who probably does understand her better than I do at the moment)…or she is typing in things like coffee shops in Portland, and dogs for adoption as I am busy researching baby stomach bugs, and posting pictures of his face all over facebook----I will remember that she is my baby sister.  That she has been my companion since she made her way into my life.  That I have watched her grow from this tiny tag along to this woman who makes people happy with her smile.  That as much as we are opposites we came from the same roots.

I will try to remind myself when I am feeling jealous and a bit annoyed that we have chosen different paths, and that is how it works.  That although we share a similar sense of humor, and basically a very similar set of morals that we don’t share all the same paths in life.  There will be days when I can barely manage to get a cup of coffee into me with a baby on my hip, and she is sipping coffee from some of the finest coffee shops in the world.  There will be days when she is walking around and missing this ocean, and my son and I will be staring out at it on one of our long walks.  There will be days when I miss her so intensely as my son does something amazing for the first time, or my Dad calls me with one of his crazy stories---something only I think she will appreciate.  I will miss her and I will wish her closer.  But I couldn’t be more proud, and I only wish that she thinks of us from time to time---her family over here on the East coast.