I woke up very early today, before the east straw orange all over the concrete colored buildings of this city which nobody writes about. Strange is the intimacy of the early morning, with only the breath of the north rousing coldly the grey pavements, sweetly for everyone who was still sounding asleep.
Today, just like most days before it, is mundane yet strange, like some old Hitchcock movie at 2 AM, creating unexpected destinations for nostalgia and for loneliness, each in sweet proportions of coffee and sugar that sits on my desk.
But I want to go back to bed, slither between my cold sheets, pretend that I’m not getting used with cupboard life, but I’m eating breakfast soon. And I’ll be off with the early city traffic, walking hurriedly over white strips, cutting red lights, commuting, panting.
I wish I could curl up the whole city between my fingers and my palm and sit right next to you, on the green soccer field, “the feeling of a thousand raindrops flooding my face while I run chasing grasshoppers and the thought of not caring whether I stain my socks or not…”
I could never forget the first time we met, some 18 years ago, that every time I remember that day, I feel that youth has never ended until now. I remember it fully, like a haunting dream in an afternoon nap, because you cried like a werewolf in one of the fantasy books I was just learning to read.
It wasn’t a polite thing to do, especially for a first meeting, but I learned to forgive you, even before you started to take away all the attention at home, which was unequivocally mine, in the years that precede the 90’s.
Little did I know that from then on, it wasn’t only the attention that we had to share, but many other things, too, and places, and time. Sometimes I think it would have been cooler if we were twins. That would have been a fair ground.
But it’s practical that I’m older, because technically, that would make you weaker, and by virtue, I’m in charge. This was always the case ever since grade school, when mom decided you can go to school with me without her, and I can bring you home like an assembled Lego, whole, without a missing piece.
And just like that, you have learned to look up to me, like our first pet puppy when you were five, because you think I’ve always been cool, in school and at home.
I realized that because I got used to the idea that you were weaker, and that it was too much of considering you as one, I have been a Hitler-disguised shadow at the back of your mind. I give you creeps, didn’t I, in moments you fail to show the world that I am your brother and things are diminutive from the high point where I stand.
But with frankness that I like to spank, you’re learning to shun my shadow, and recognize that you, too, have distinctive ways at things. You’re now starting to apprehend that freedom is also a religion, and happiness is a bit complicated and that you don’t blame anyone for it. I like that version of you, better than those inferior, clueless jokes that you sported when we were still growing up. Although I find it quite ridiculous at times, I think that you are doing perfectly well
Now that you’re learning to skip the ropes without me, or without mom watching over you like a fish in an aquarium, try to remember that you can’t be the gutsy Harriet The Spy all the time and whenever you dangle like a loose umbilical cord, we are just here to lay down the net catcher, or swing you the next rope for safety.
Happy birthday, my favorite sister.
20 something, quarter-life crisis, loss of love, name it, nothing's weird.
