The Lead is Smaller

We went for a bike ride on the Saturday evening we shared in Arizona, my sister and I.  Around the loop in the late afternoon sunshine, we talked about things which neither of us really have an answer for but still they needed talking.  She and I are ten years apart in age but I’m finding my ten year lead on her is feeling smaller and smaller.  A four year old and a fourteen year old are much different.  A fourteen year old and a twenty-four year old are even more different.  And now a twenty year old and a thirty year old don’t feel all that different.  

Life gets smaller, or maybe tighter is the better word, in a way as I age and I wonder if everyone feels the same.  Not smaller in a negative way, just tighter in a way like choice after choice gets made as we filter through college and first jobs and first houses and settling into a town and a place until soon it feels like this is life.  Here it is.  This is what you will do now.   

That’s a comforting notion and a maddening one all at the same time.  I love routine and knowing what’s coming ahead but there’s also a nudge of stifle that I want to shove away.

My sister is twenty.   

I’m thirty.

 

And oddly enough, I find that we are more alike than ever.  She even cares about clean now too.  Shocking.  I have to throw the word karma at her several times...several because it just feels that good.  Sister Pister is making all of those first choices and I'm making all my am I sure choices.  My lead on her is smaller and I always hoped that would happen, that our relationship would become more symbiotic, more on the same page in the life book.    

We went for a bike ride around the loop in the late afternoon sunshine and we talked about things which neither of us really have an answer for. 

I sure do love that nugget and her way of making me laugh so hard I cry.

Only she can get away with this kind of thing with Dad-o.  That's worth something right there.  

Only she can get away with convincing me to pose 80s style senior pics with her.  Before this lovely moment, Momma Debi called me a sheep dog.  So now I know for sure I have the 80s senior pic status down as well as sheep dog.  Go me.   

We made a lemon pie that afternoon and while I was pouring and she was whisking I said to her, "Just give me a little kiss."  Because that's normal.  We laughed.  A lot.  Apparently I get confused with all the people I love.