Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Meet the Family

Before I blog any more about my sisters, let me introduce them to you. I keep referring to "my sister" or "my oldest sister" or whatever, and I suspect it's confusing.

I have three older sisters. They were named alphabetically: J, K and L. I was nearly M but my favorite aunt swooped in and saved me just days before my birth.

J was born ten months after my parents married. She was the first grandchild on either side of the family. She was adored (and adorable). Eighteen years later, she got kicked out of BYU. She had a baby about a year before she married the baby's father. In 1964. She married the guy, twice. He was a drummer in a band and an ass. They had two kids together. She divorced him (twice). She now lives with her partner of over 20 years, near my mom. She takes very good care of Mom. She's a worrier.

K was born a year and a half after J. They were very close growing up. K is very tall and spent her adolescence learning to compact her torso without slouching so she'd be shorter than the boys. She can also wiggle her ears. She graduated from BYU and is still a very active Mormon. She is an elementary school teacher and has six children and about a gazillion grandchildren. She is the favorite. Don't tell Mom we know.

L is six years younger than K and seven years older than me. Mom only planned to have two children. L was a big surprise. L has battled weight problems almost all her life. She went to BYU one year, then transferred to a state college. She left there after a year and got married. Like K, the Mormon church is at the center of her life. She has four daughters and two grandchildren (one was adopted by another family earlier this year). She and I used to be close. Now we don't speak.

Me? I'm the baby. By the time I was 11, all my sisters were out of the house. By then my parents had more disposable income, so I got "spoiled" with things like piano lessons and a "store-bought" dress for the prom. I left the Mormon church at about 17 and had my name taken off their records officially when I was about 25. I went to a state university, where I got a couple of degrees. I'm married to my second husband and have no kids.

We're an odd bunch. We're not close, we have little in common and we're all pretty sure the other three are in cahoots against us. We're far apart in terms of age and philosophies, and all the competition for Mom's short supply of love in our early years made it impossible to trust each other later. I still sometimes imagine we're a happy, close family that gets together for holidays and big family events. I would like that to be true, and to some extent it was when Dad was still alive. Now, we just don't connect. We're like polite strangers, really.

1 comment:

Sarahlynn said...

I miss you over yonder and am glad that I can see read you here. :)