Growing Pains Dealing With Your Baby Sister’s Problems Becomes A Bit More Difficult When You Realize She’s No Longer A Baby
When I hear my baby sister’s voice, the first thing I remember is a happy toddler who used to play drums on every pan in the house.
She was cute and unassuming, and best of all, she never asked for my advice. The fact she hadn’t mastered English probably had something to do with it, but I’m sure if she could talk she’d ask harmless questions, such as “Why must I eat mashed asparagus?” and “What’s the big deal about this potty thing?”
But she is not a baby anymore - far from it. She recently turned 20 and lives the life of most 20-year-old women, which in big-brother terms means she does things I have no interest in knowing about. I don’t want to know about her nightlife, her recreational activities or her boyfriends - especially her boyfriends.
But when she called me the other night in a semi-sob sounding voice and told me she just broken up with her boyfriend of two years, I wasn’t sure what to say. I knew it was a moment when she needed reassurance, a moment when her big brother could dole out some sage words of comfort. So I stopped for a second, gathered my thoughts, took a deep breath, and using my 28 years of relationship experience, uttered these profound words:
“So, um, do you want me to beat him up?”
When it comes to relationships, you’re better off asking the Pentagon for advice than you are asking me. It’s not that I haven’t been in committed relationships before, it’s just my best one involves the Columbia House Record and Tape Club and that’s because they haven’t found me yet.
I could, however, understand what my sister was going through. When I was 21 I was nearing the end of a three-year courtship, and at that age, three years is a long time to be involved. Everything becomes this great big routine and then suddenly, like the onset on amnesia, everything is different. You’re home at different hours, you sleep more.
You call your siblings for support.
I called my older sister, who was 27, looking for guidance. Her view of the world is different from the norm, tempered by years of psychology classes. Instead of assessing the topic for what it is, she filters it through Freud and Jung before coming to a decision.
For example, she thinks Shakespeare’s Hamlet is not indecisive or weak but instead is gay. Now through my many years of studying Shakespeare, the thought of Hamlet as a homosexual has never been a topic of discussion (although it brings a whole new meaning to that “To be or not to be” soliloquy).
She listened to me whine about my ex-girlfriend, then started to rattle off a series of things that would “make it better.”
“You could start a new hobby to get your mind off things,” she said. “Remember there are plenty of girls out there who would like to date you. And it’s not good to get bogged down in your work, and you should let yourself feel” and blah, blah, blah.
She was a self-help book that lost the off switch. I know she meant well, but I didn’t call seeking advice. I just wanted someone to tell me that my ex-girlfriend was the worst person in the world, I had just won the lottery, and would I like to meet the available Miss California for a night of drinks, dancing and possibly more?
Fast forward to 15 minutes into my conversation with my little sister, when I caught myself saying: “Don’t work too much, remember to eat. There will be someone else.”
It was then I realized the loss of love is a lesson of survival we must face on our own. I was offering her salves because I wanted her hurt to go away.
I wanted to tell her that time truly does heal all wounds, but she wasn’t ready to hear that.
Instead I stopped talking and let her be angry for a little bit.
And when she sounded better, I told a bad joke and said if she ever needed to rant, she knew where to reach me.
I hung up the phone and looked at her baby picture, and everything had changed. The voice I heard wasn’t that of a pot-banging toddler anymore - it was the sound of a young woman trying to find her way.