The Next Bold Move – Me Vs. The World

When I go home to visit my family (visits becoming few and far between) I always stay in my baby sister’s room. After I left for my second year of college my parents moved into a smaller house on the family farm. My antique bed from WW I was disassembled and reassmebeled a quarter of a mile down the gravel road to start round two of purple unicorns, fairies, and endless journal entries about crushes and broken hearts for my niece. Now, without my own room I always stay in my sister’s huge bed that was once the guest bed before Becca came along. Becca is not so much a baby anymore at 16 going on 25, but she will always be my Baby Becca and I will always see her as a little girl in her purple and pink footsie pj’s holding one of her 20 million kitties at the old house. When we crawl under the layers of cats, stuffed animals and pillows I yawn and complain about how tired I am, but when we snuggle up together inevitably we are attacked by a bad case of the giggles. She doesn’t have a clock in her room so what seems like hours, but who knows how long it really is, we revel in the secret life of being a girl.

It starts with the question – do you have a boyfriend?
She answers with a giggle yes or a giggle no.

Either way it ensues the topic of the hour – her innocent, little girl crush. She tells me about how perfect some boy is in her home room, or the cute trumpet player she marches by in the state fair show (all five of us are band geeks and proud). Her innocence and naivety is beautiful in that way that we loose sometime between leaving home pretending to be grown up and actually living on our own being a grown up. It doesn’t matter if it’s a school night or Christmas Eve our little tradition always carries on into the quiet hours of the night when only the tick-tock of the old clocks and the hush of the cat paws dance with the midwest winter wind. We try to stay hushed because our parents sleep in the room underneath us and Dad can hear the slightest movement when he sleeps. It’s “giggle giggle giggle” then “shhhh, don’t wake Dad.” Then, even louder, “giggle giggle giggle.” It’s the best part of being a sister and the bond that neither of our brother’s will ever understand.

What seems like milleniums ago, but was just a few years ago, I drove the three hours to my sister’s old farm house on school breaks. I followed her around the house giggling as she cleaned up her kids toys. I went on and on about some boy I met after practicing for my weekly piano lesson, “Megan all he wants to do is sing! How perfect is that?! And he’s going to do it!” A few weeks later the Blessed-Lady-of-Acceleration broke down again and I declared, “I will ride my bike to Michigan if that’s what it takes to see him!”

*Last I heard this boy was in law school. I never talked to him again after school let out for the summer.*

The best part about being a girl is staying up all night with your best girlfriend talking more about the idea of someone than that person. The moment before the first date, the first kiss and long before the disappointment of the last date and the last kiss, when the universe is aligned because two strangers met under not so unusual, but seemingly unbelievable circumstances. That moment when even the most cynical person can believe in love for a fleeting moment. Maybe it’s just girls, I don’t know, maybe boys get to go through this too, but I secretly hope not.

I can’t remember the last time I dug through Becca’s pajama drawer looking for my old t-shirts that got handed down to her for sleeping. I think the last time I went home was when our 6 year old niece caught Becca in her first kiss. Paige ran down the stairs with her blonde curls bouncing, “Becca kissed a boy! Mom, Becca kissed a boy!” We all tried to ignore Paige and go on with our grown-up tasks so not to embarrass Becca, but that night, like every other night, we crawled into bed and I demanded every detail. It was just a small peck, but enough to set a world of expectations that no man will ever be able to live up to. Why do we fall in love with the idea of someone and everything they might be before we even know the person?

I am homesick for the feeling of being a big sister. I hate hearing about her junior high broken heart and not being able to cheer her up. I want to be there to tell her what a loser he was and how wonderful she is no matter what the circumstances of the break up was. I miss Becca so much it hurts like falling off the monkey bars and having the wind knocked out of you. The other thing I miss is that feeling of having butterflies in my stomach when someone walks into the room. That moment when, trying not to stare, I hope to make eye contact with someone on the other side of the room. Holding my breath until a complete stranger notices me at a friend’s crowded barbecue. A crush. I can’t remember the last time I had a crush.

I met a man last night that I might never talk to again (especially if he reads this), but that doesn’t matter (but I really hope he does). In a world of disaster after disaster – gunmen, earthquakes, war, death, destruction – we talk about love and art, but I forgot what it is like to have a crush. To dance with the physical attraction and energy of a person and not know a thing about him. I thought the world had lost this magic. I thought it was gone forever, but it was just buried under cynicsm and pessimism. It was there all along. Maybe he’ll call. Maybe he won’t. That’s not what matters, that’s not what I miss. All I want to do is to curl up next to Becca on a chilly Indiana evening and listen to the wind howl in the empty cornfields enclosing the house and declaring “love” to the idea of a person that I simply have a crush on.

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