On Not Acting My Age

Remember when I told you I rode with my parents and little sister to a wedding?  And then I stayed in the hotel room with them after creeping in with my jingly jangly dangly jewelry in the wee hours of the early morning.  And how I loved riding in the car that next morning.  Snuggled up in a blanket in the back with my sister next to me and my parents visiting in the front.  About how that made me feel like a kid again.  Remember how I told you about that?

Well now I'm here to tell you that sometimes I really enjoy the bajeebies out of acting the same age as my sister.  She is seventeen.  A senior in high school.  And because she is seventeen and a senior in high school, she does things like take pictures in front of mirrors.  It's a high school right of passage.  Or something like that.  Or maybe it's a twenty-eight year old who had some wine with her family at a wedding right of passage.  

Either way, here is what you end up with.  Courtesy of me and the Sister Pister.  

This behavior?  Appropriate for Sister Pister.  Not so appropriate for me and my forehead wrinkles.  But I will always be reminded of the hilarity we shared that night when I look at those pictures.  Memories.  Oh how I love them.  

The really exciting part of that evening was Sister Pister was allowed in the bar.  Now keep in mind my parents were present and the bride is not only our cousin, but also is Sister Pister's high school basketball coach.  So obviously, if Sister Pister was in the bar with me, it was totally a legal situation.  That didn't take away from the greatness of it all though.  As we sat there across from each other, with our legs crossed on high chairs, me with a glass of wine, her with a Shirley Temple...it made me think about the future.  When we will be able to hit the town together for real girl's night out without Shirley involved.  Sister sharing all her crazy college stories with me while I smile and nod remembering my own wild times.  It also made me think about the past.  About the times when she was a little kid who I wasn't able to talk about real things with.  Not because I didn't love her, but because she was eleven and it's not appropriate to share twenty-one year old stories with an eleven year old.  

Now though, when I'm sitting across from my sister and she is dishing about her latest boy and I'm popping right back with the latest dating ditty, my heart smiles.  Because we are equals.  Equals who get to talk about real things.  We are equals who understand each other and can listen to each other without either me trying to "parent" by giving her not wanted advice or her rolling her eyes at my goofiness.  We are finally to the good sister stuff.

I suppose we aren't total equals.  I have wrinkles.  She does not.   

Here's where I insert a random note that says this.  Neither one of those are my feet.  They are my cousin's on the left and Sister Pister's on the right.  And this is what they said to me while we were standing in the bar.  "Hey Amy!  Look!  IT'S COWBOYS AND INDIANS going on right here!"   

Funny girls.  They are the best kind.    

And later on, as I watched Sister Pister being flirted with by boys my age in the bar, I couldn't help but want to yell and star-jack when she said things like this back, "Thank you for thinking my boots are fabulous.  Because they are.  And the bride is my high school basketball coach.  What do you think about my boots now?"  

Yes she really said that.  I didn't actually star-jack.  That's hard to do in boots and a paisley dress, but I really did fist pump and turn to the guy I was visiting with and say, "Did you hear that?!"  Because my little sister is hilarious.  She is strong.  She is confident.  And she will be just fine in life.