The story goes that when my mom was expecting (me) my older brothers were hoping for a baby boy and my sisters were hoping for a baby girl. The morning after I was born my dad went into the girl’s room first to tell them the good news: first that I was not born in the car, and secondly that I was a girl. They were so excited they screamed. Next my dad went into the boys’ room, but the screaming had woken them and they had already figured out that I was not what they wanted. They got their baby boy 18 months later, but that is another story. As a baby I was their living doll. They did a lot of this to me when I was little:
I don’t know if it was the age difference, because I had two older sisters, or a combination of both, but M became a second mother to me. M would “help” me decide what to wear in the morning, till the infamous “yellow socks” situation. I had a very pretty pink sweater that I planned on wearing to school one day (it had to have been 1st grade or kindergarten) and I decided that yellow socks would go nicely with the sweater. M refused to let me leave the room with the yellow socks. She put her leg up on the bed and blocked my exit. Once I pulled white socks out of the drawer she let me loose. Down in the kitchen I ran into my dad, who noticed I was upset. I explained to him about my chosen socks and he said to me, “Mary-pie you can wear what-ever socks you want.” What happened next I have suppressed from memory but my dad says “I really let M have it”. What I do remember is that I wore yellow socks that day. M went off to college the next year; she married and now has 3 beautiful daughters. Then she was a real mother and I was a very cheap babysitter (free actually). Not that I minded, I love my sister M. She could braid my hair to withstand a hurricane…so what if a swig of whiskey and a stick to bite were nessecary to remain conscience while she braided?…it was worth it. Now that we are older, I think she sees me as more of an equal than a child; after all we are often mistaken for twins.
My sister N, on the other hand, never really mothered me. N could do a very pretty braid, but it was rather delicate. When she went off to college I was only 9, but N wrote me postcards pretty regularly. After college, N would have me stay at her apartment and we’d go to the pool and “hang out”. When I went off to college, I really started to feel that N and I were peers. I would borrow clothes from her, and we’d call each other after break-ups. We were friends, actually. N married 5 yers ago and has two great step children. Of my siblings, I talk to N most frequently. We have the same sense of humor which is not always appreciated by others…like last night we had conversations about the cadaver industry and “adult” movies (two completely separate topics, I should add).
I love my sisters and would like to officially and publicly apologize for all those times I took stuff out of your dresser drawers. Yes, it was me. Sorry.
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