Love Song for my Sister

My sister is a marvel. Sometimes a charmer in every sense of the word, sometimes a torture hard to bear for more than ten minutes. She is all at once wildly funny and frightfully infuriating - stubborn as an ox but as overly sensitive as a small child. There are times when you would think she is the most street wise person you have ever met, and others when her naivety would shock and bewilder you. She is beautiful in the best way that a woman can be beautiful - in that quiet and unassuming way, as though she would never truly believe you thought her anything other than plain. In her twenty-six years on this planet, I have loved her and hated her more than any other person in my life. Lately her life is changing - or rather she has started to notice her life in a completely different way. It is weird and wonderful, and heartbreaking to watch her go through it. My mother said she is in a cocoon...I guess I can allow for my mother to be right on occasion.

AJ was the most beautiful baby I have ever seen, perfectly formed and immediately adorable - not like her wrinkled and alien-looking peers. My mother loves to tell me of how I used to carry her around and tell everyone she was "my baby," and barely a photo exists of the two of us in those first three years where I am not kissing or hugging her (although she is often seen resisting). If you asked me to tell the story of our lives from my perspective, I would use those photos as a visual depiction of our relationship throughout childhood and adolescence. A big sister who was desperate to love and cuddle and mother (but only in the way she wanted) - a little sister scrambling (fighting, kicking) to stand by herself.

I have written before about the problems I had with my sister. We were such polar opposites, so adamant that we would not be alike. While I donned a tutu and danced ballet recitals in the hallway with my hair trailing elegantly down my back, AJ chopped her hair off and donned a baseball cap - introducing herself to people as my brother. When I made my first communion I reveled in the white dress and gloves - AJ wore a suit and tie. My parents, in either an amazing act of insight or as a demonstration of their lack of knowing what else to do, chose to ignore her push towards all things masculine. They never passed comment on it or indicated that it was in any way different from the norm. For years I was convinced my sister had been going through some gender identity crisis - I realise now it was probably just an attempt to be the person in our family who was not me...and to do that as loudly as possible. Eventually AJ stopped playing with matchbox cars and GI Joes. She grew her hair out and stopped telling people that when she grew up she wanted to be a boy, but she did not cease to take every action possible to be the person in our family who was not me. While I people pleased, brought home impeccable report cards and danced in ballet recitals, AJ feigned apathy to her teachers and became a sporting legend. I gleaned attention by listing accomplishments and oozing politeness, AJ made everyone laugh and held an audience in the palm of her hand while telling stories. I followed every rule to the point of the ridiculous, AJ broke them whatever chance she got. Whether we knew it or not, we were determined to be different, and with that difference came a rocky and fragile relationship that would haunt us for years to come.

What AJ perhaps didn't realise during all of this was how much I wanted her to like me. How desperate I had been for her approval. While I grinned with pride at being called brainy, pretty or polite by others, from my sister I saw it as a barrier to our relationship. I wanted to braid her hair and tell her about boys, to sit up at night talking after our parents shut the lights out. I wanted to tell her deep dark secrets that I would normally only write in my diary, and to defend her honour to anyone who dared try to do her harm. I wanted to be a big sister, in that ridiculous and romantic "ya ya sisterhood" bullshit way that people have sisters. I remember when I was about 13 I watched the movie Beaches. It was glorious, the way these two women loved each other. I cried the whole way through, reassured that even if parents split up and lovers leave and people get divorced, there would always be that one woman who would love you forever and never leave you. I decided (perhaps before then) that AJ was the only woman fit for that job. Surely your own flesh and blood would be the only person capable for such a task. After all, who better to understand me than the girl who shared every part of my girlhood? Who had the same embarrassing parent stories, who knew what it was like to live in my skin? Yes, AJ was my forever friend. The wind beneath my naive, romantic, controlling, perfectionist little wings.

And therein lies perhaps the biggest problem with our relationship. I wanted my sister to fit into my idea of sisterhood. Braid hair, don't shoot hoops. Watch girlie movies, not slasher flicks. Hug and kiss to show affection, don't hi-five or punch arms. The more she didn't fit into my little "sister" box, the more resentful I grew of our fragmented relationship. I held AJ to the same ridiculous standards to which I held myself. And she just didn't live up to them.

Problem number two, and perhaps what AJ would see as our biggest problem, is that I just couldn't stop mothering her. I was so sure something horrible was awaiting us both out there, and I no longer trusted that my parents would keep it from us. I dubbed myself my sister's protector. Just as I would work hard to ensure I raised myself out of the life I hated, I would make damn sure she came with me. On my terms. Whether she liked it or not. Cue several years of a child, less than two years older than the younger child, telling said younger child what to do/not do/say/not say/etc ad infinitum. Who wouldn't understand her rebellion against me? After all I held her to standards far stricter and higher than my parents ever held her to. Instead I watched her drift further away from me. And to make matters worse, almost as if to prove she was capable of it with anyone but me, I watched her be that heroic friend I was waiting for to almost everyone she met. The low point for me was when she, at the age of 18, told me we should just make an agreement to not ask one another to be each other's maids of honour when we got married - because she already had someone else in mind for the job.

After I left home, distance provided a bit of relief from our fighting. Eventually we even started sending each other cards and notes, but I managed to blow that too. AJ would send me some beautifully written card about how much she loved me and how she always looked up to me, and in my overzealous excitement I would call her and insist we talk about our feelings. Once again I could not let her love me in the way she was able - I needed Barbara Hershey or nothing at all! My vision clouded by a romantic notion of what I expected her to be, I couldn't see the relationship that was growing right in front of me.

Two years ago I asked AJ to be my maid of honour in spite of our previous vow. She accepted, and I repaid her by making her feel bad about not doing enough for the wedding and answering "yes" when she asked if I would've chosen my friend Colleen if she had not been my sister. In reality, I could not have picked someone better for the moments leading up to my long walk down the aisle. In the months before the wedding, AJ slaved over a scrapbook full of pictures of childhood scenes and our family. When I was waiting for the limousine to take me to the church, AJ broke my nervous silence with ridiculous jokes and held my dress while I went to the bathroom. In the car, when my feet hurt, she and my father rubbed them and tried to stretch out my shoes. She did everything she should have done and more - and I ignored it because it wasn't the way I had pictured it in my head.

I don't know what has changed, but lately AJ and I have been becoming closer. The more I analyse it, the more I think it is because she is becoming more emotional and open. A bit more like me. I am both elated and guilt ridden by our new found friendship - and worried that it could end or change at any moment. Living without it before was difficult, living without it now that I realise how wonderful it is would be unbearable. I get giddy waiting for our Tuesday night phone calls, but try hard to rein myself in so she can't see my excitement. There are times when I feel exploitative, as though I am taking advantage of her vulnerability right now and using it to fulfill this happy little sister dream I always had. But then other times, when I can hear how genuine she sounds when she tells me how she hates to miss my calls or when she sends me notes to say she loves me for no reason, I think I can relax into this new found relationship for good.

AJ hates it when I address her directly in this blog, in fact she hates it when I write about her at all. I just needed someone to know that while I never got my Beaches moment, never got to give her a facial or gossip with her about her first kiss, I really think what we have ended up with is so much better. We have both grown into ourselves on our own, and yet we still feel pulled to each other. I have always loved my sister because she was my sister, but I can't tell you how much better it is to be able to love her as a woman and a friend.

So with that said, and knowing that she will likely punish me for it later, I dedicate this song to my beautiful, strong, hilarious, intelligent, compassionate and loyal sister AJ. It's not Wind Beneath my Wings - that would be far too predictable and not at all you. I have already told you you're my hero - but there's a few things I have left out along the way. I promise to keep trying to fill in the gaps the best I can.