Lighten up.
I’m balancing on one foot like a grey heron as I tell you.
Be a lark. You’ve gotten far too serious…
I flop into a pile of feathers with exasperation, and we snicker.
I’m flabbergasted, I say. We love that word.
I’m sitting on my bed. You’re sitting on yours. We’re in our jammies, chatting late into the night. I’m confessing all my secrets and self-criticisms because you’re like one of my sisters, and I desperately want someone to tell me it’s okay to feel the way I do.
You know what it is?
I see myself in someone else’s skin as they use those words. I take on their personality, and you know exactly who I’m impersonating. We share a look and a smile. This is fun. I relax.
I’ve been blissfully unaware of my mouth again.
I spit it out before I can think about it.
It’s my mouth. My words. My carelessness.
See how I do, I motion with a half-hearted flap. That’s why it became “so serious,” I say, allowing my eyes to roll in my head like a teenager.
So dramatic. Hostile. Annoyed. Not happy.
We both pause with it, reflecting. You know there’s more. I’ve veiled some deeper truth, so you wait as I breathe into my hands. They’re folded in my lap.
I’m afraid, too, I say, like Mommy will hear us, because I’ve been as bad as I imagine others might be … with me.
It’s not hard to imagine the worst when you feel you’ve been at your worst. Not only that, but that you’ve been your worst for far too long.
You look back over moments in your life as countless as the stars, wherein you did not rise. You didn’t measure up at all. Not to the molten image you’d erected of yourself – because you know that was what it was. You see it with such clarity that you want to separate yourself from that image as fast as possible.
Not it.
A game of keep-away won’t do, though. And it’s a never-ending demolition project. I keep unearthing great stony pillars in the backyard.
Can’t get ‘em all, not all in one day anyway, I say, when I have to walk away.
She’s bested me. Got to give her that.
My head is bowed in respect, but it bobs back and forth with every disappointed step.
I can only do so much, I say, soothing myself that it’s okay.
I’ve yo-yoed between two worlds, trying to find the balance, but I’m afraid I’ll never get there.
You smile and tell me you know exactly what I’m talking about. Your grin is as wide and warm as a big, gooey chocolate chip cookie. It reassures me to keep talking, to find the words because I’m “on the right track.”
It’s growth. I’m growing somehow, aren’t I? Only, I don’t know this.
You do.
You make me feel like I just got a fuzzy sticker on my shirt from my favorite teacher. I’ve never felt more thankful. And you’re just as excited for me to find the words for my latest revelations as I am. I smile and glisten at you, and you let the connection linger just long enough for my cups to nearly overflow. Then, you distract me from it, rushing me back to discovery, like an eager assistant.
I’ve said it. I’ve thought it. I’ve been at my worst and taken it personally. I’ve not always sown seeds of positivity and light. Not by a long shot.
The lesson stings. You wait and look down into your lap to give me the privacy to have it. I honk my nose into a tissue and regroup for another assault. When I begin arguing about what I deserve, your hands raise to stop me.
These are the moments you rescue me. I feel you pulling me back from the brink. Your hands are on my shoulders. Steady. Unflinching.
You speak.
The words might not seem special to you. You certainly won’t give them the credit they deserve. But to me, they’re a lifeline. I see them coming out of your gentle mouth, and my head cocks to one side in contentment.
My big sister is speaking to me.