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4 minute read
Poppy Talks • From Bicycles to Back Pain
THE BLISSFUL (LIFELONG) BONDS OF SIBLINGHOOD
My three siblings and I live in three states and, since we all have families, we are in that season of life when we can typically only prioritize our middle-class money for reunions at weddings and funerals. But a few weeks ago, Older Brother took his daughter on a college visit and Little Brother's house happened to be on the way. They posted a selfie on Facebook and my first thought was how nice it was for them to get together for the first time in 12 years.
My second (and mildly startling) thought was, "Who are those old guys?" I mean, yeah, Poppy has looked in the mirror lately, too. I have watched myself get just as old incrementally, and I see my siblings on FaceTime every now and then, doing whatever they are doing. But all of a sudden, as a group ... WE are the old people in the family. I had flashes of family gatherings 40 years ago (suddenly realizing how often I say “40 years ago” to describe the 1980s!) when my uncles and aunts seemed super old at my current age.
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It's not as if we siblings haven't lamented the sad infrequency of family visits for the past 30 years already. That was about the time we all started getting married and moving to the places our spouses were from. (Why did it end up that way anyway?) And then we all had children, so we finally stopped fighting like children ourselves.
I have to say, that was the best thing that could have happened to our relationships. The brother that I fought with, literally, every day, because he spent most of his teen years trying to compete with and outshine me, is now the first person I call for everything from a silly dad joke to bad news from my doctor.
He's also the sounding board I spent the most time with into my adult years (because it took us forever to move out of Mom's house). Incidentally, now that we're old, he has outdone me in many ways, but Mom secretly told me he was always working so hard to make me proud of him. So, yes, Little Brother, I am. And sorry-not-sorry, you are the big one in the photo but in my neural network, you will forever be my little brother.
Naturally, I had a third thought, and many more after. I spent a weird amount of time on it actually. Even though we are all in our 50s, and old enough to be grandparents, we are still and will always be the people we were in 1973. Big Brother is still the trailblazer, doing everything first and giving us younger sibs the idea to try something new. He's still a computer nerd, has a secret stash of comic books, and he still likes to do the things only he got to do with our dad because he was the first son. Plus, he has almost always driven hotrod cars that made us wish we were as fearless as he.
Big Sister has always been in motion, obsessing about her latest car, doing everything from field hockey to windsurfing. She still has a passion for sports and fitness, particularly as a cancer survivor, and still tells me to eat more vegetables as if I hadn't yet heard the news about healthy food. She has always been consumed with her work but only because she finds genuine joy in being excellent and showing off the work ethic she got from our dad. Seriously she puts the same energy and enthusiasm into her current semi-retirement job at a grocery store deli as she did with million-dollar marketing accounts 10 years ago and managing at a public park as a teenager.
The thing is, there's nothing better than the people who know your entire history, share your values and memories, understand exactly which eye roll you're executing when your parents embarrass you, and allow you a place where you will always belong. And even in our 50s—I’ll paraphrase that great essay from The Breakfast Club—we continue moving through and between the lanes we carved as younger people: a nerd, a stress-eater, the oldest child / baby of the family, the middle children, over-achievers, athletes, singers, comedians, and prayer warriors.
I don't know exactly when we merged into the "old ones" lane, but it's been a good time getting here and it's nice to be here together.