In My Place
People who see my sister and I for the first time like to point out how similar we look. In actuality, despite 12 years my junior, my sister is taller than me. She has long flowing dark hair like a mane, the kind I used to only dream about as a child with my misbehaving curls getting the best of my head. She has pale skin like me but the kind that easily tans after a long peaceful day in the sun, and doesn't boil, bubble and burst like mine. And yet she has my eyes, and she has my nose, and she has my lips to a certain extent, and people always relate her to me as it is quite clear that we are indeed sisters.
People who know us a bit better than first impressions like to point out how different we are. My sister is bold and fearless at times, she is not afraid of a little white lie to get the job done (I am far from a saint, but I have an overactive conscience which makes me at times a very bad liar), she is a little bit manipulative, and has a good mouth on her. Don't get me wrong, she is a good kid, much unlike many of her age, still innocent to bits in so many ways that keep me sound asleep at night. And yet, my mom likes to point out how devious she can get if only she tries.
But my mom, and I suppose even my sister don't know one thing. My sister is me, in a different generation. My sister lives out the fantasies I had when I was her age, if only the least bit. These are the similarities that never were, and so could never be compared, but I know. I see. I was a child of dreams. I spent my days in the libraries, my nights under the covers with a flashlight. We had a mobile library on our street, a big truck that would stop by twice a week, a world of adventures on wheels. Other kids would run out of their houses in excitement upon hearing the sounds of the ice cream truck, but I would take my little feet (note: they likely haven't grown since then...) as fast as I could when the library would honk outside my doors. And life was so much more interesting in those books. You could be none the wiser by looking at me, delicate and fragile today, but I was a tomboy, in those days. Running on the hills across from our small apartments, climbing on the trees, as high as I could, and spending hours under the seawater in hopes of turning into a mermaid. And yet I was shy about my dreams, and I kept my make beliefs to myself for the most part. My interactions with other children were never overly imaginative or fantastical. This was my world, and no one was allowed in.
And my sister? She too gets lost in the books. Except she has movies, and music, and tv to boot as well. And she opens the doors to her mind, and she lets people in. And for that I am envious. Not because I think she needs to try out every little scheme that worked well for a fictional teenager (note: in real life it usually ends in disaster), but because 12 years older and I still haven't figured out how to do that.
I am still a child of dreams. I am still exhausted by the banality of reality. I am still much more alive in an hour a book, or a movie, or a television program than I am in 14 hours of daily living. And sometimes I think I matured backwards. Because even as kids we know the difference between real and fantasy, but the more I see, and the more I live, the more I believe in some of those fantasies. And while as a child I could detach myself for a moment of happiness and take comfort in the fact it's only in my head, these days I want more. These days I long to take a little bit of those colors and paint my world with them. But I don't. Because bad endings are romantic in star-crossed fairy tales, but not in life. If I leap, there's a chance I won't make it to the other side without a broken bone or a broken heart. And when I shake my head at my friend, who lives as if she hasn't read the next chapter yet, and ends up with her money stolen, or sick, or under arrest, and when I tell her to come down from her cloud in the sky and to reality, I really want to tell her to never come down, and take me with her. But I never will. Because I am still that child who won't let the other kids into her world, not because they may ridicule her for it, but because they may ruin it forever, and then, there'll be nothing left to run away to.
note: I posted this on facebook quite half-heartedly, as this is most likely one of the most personal and intimate things I've written. But for now, I think it's going to stay put, because this is who I am, and as a writer I need to let that out
People who know us a bit better than first impressions like to point out how different we are. My sister is bold and fearless at times, she is not afraid of a little white lie to get the job done (I am far from a saint, but I have an overactive conscience which makes me at times a very bad liar), she is a little bit manipulative, and has a good mouth on her. Don't get me wrong, she is a good kid, much unlike many of her age, still innocent to bits in so many ways that keep me sound asleep at night. And yet, my mom likes to point out how devious she can get if only she tries.
But my mom, and I suppose even my sister don't know one thing. My sister is me, in a different generation. My sister lives out the fantasies I had when I was her age, if only the least bit. These are the similarities that never were, and so could never be compared, but I know. I see. I was a child of dreams. I spent my days in the libraries, my nights under the covers with a flashlight. We had a mobile library on our street, a big truck that would stop by twice a week, a world of adventures on wheels. Other kids would run out of their houses in excitement upon hearing the sounds of the ice cream truck, but I would take my little feet (note: they likely haven't grown since then...) as fast as I could when the library would honk outside my doors. And life was so much more interesting in those books. You could be none the wiser by looking at me, delicate and fragile today, but I was a tomboy, in those days. Running on the hills across from our small apartments, climbing on the trees, as high as I could, and spending hours under the seawater in hopes of turning into a mermaid. And yet I was shy about my dreams, and I kept my make beliefs to myself for the most part. My interactions with other children were never overly imaginative or fantastical. This was my world, and no one was allowed in.
And my sister? She too gets lost in the books. Except she has movies, and music, and tv to boot as well. And she opens the doors to her mind, and she lets people in. And for that I am envious. Not because I think she needs to try out every little scheme that worked well for a fictional teenager (note: in real life it usually ends in disaster), but because 12 years older and I still haven't figured out how to do that.
I am still a child of dreams. I am still exhausted by the banality of reality. I am still much more alive in an hour a book, or a movie, or a television program than I am in 14 hours of daily living. And sometimes I think I matured backwards. Because even as kids we know the difference between real and fantasy, but the more I see, and the more I live, the more I believe in some of those fantasies. And while as a child I could detach myself for a moment of happiness and take comfort in the fact it's only in my head, these days I want more. These days I long to take a little bit of those colors and paint my world with them. But I don't. Because bad endings are romantic in star-crossed fairy tales, but not in life. If I leap, there's a chance I won't make it to the other side without a broken bone or a broken heart. And when I shake my head at my friend, who lives as if she hasn't read the next chapter yet, and ends up with her money stolen, or sick, or under arrest, and when I tell her to come down from her cloud in the sky and to reality, I really want to tell her to never come down, and take me with her. But I never will. Because I am still that child who won't let the other kids into her world, not because they may ridicule her for it, but because they may ruin it forever, and then, there'll be nothing left to run away to.
note: I posted this on facebook quite half-heartedly, as this is most likely one of the most personal and intimate things I've written. But for now, I think it's going to stay put, because this is who I am, and as a writer I need to let that out