Dear Sister: You Are The Light Of My Life, So Shine

Another year, another anniversary of the day the annoying littler version of me I know as Rebecca came into the world. Another day, another period in Robotics where I write instead of working. Thank god for subs.

My mom gave me a birthday card to write in for my sister's birthday dinner tonight, and due to the fact that she gave it to me yesterday (or possibly Sunday evening) I felt too lazy to fill it out. Finally when she reminded me last night to fill out the card, I told her I'd fill it out at school and then stuffed the card into my binder (carefully). Sometimes brushing off something for a later time, a time when you're more prepared and admittedly more procrastinatory on your AVP assignment, can allow it to be better than if you forced yourself to write it immediately. There are times when the more work you put into something, the lesser quality it comes out to be.

Now, due to the risk of my sister seeing this post before I give her the card tonight, I won't be posting this until afterwards, or at least right before we leave. She'll come back from her birthday dinner, read it in her room, then run out and hug me. She loves me, and I love her, and no matter how many times we ramp up the snarky comments we shoot between each other to our mother's dismay and then end the night in mutual hatred, that will always be the case.

In my card for her, I wrote about how proud of her I was. I won't give the exact dialogue as to what the card said, since that'll be exclusively hers. This is merely a follow-up, since I ran out of room on the card. To summarize, I told her how happy I was for her, that she's 12 now, and that even though middle school sucks (ah, totalitarianism), and that that part of her life would be over before she knew it. The bad parts of her life would only be temporary, and eventually the storm would end, unless of course she lives on Kamino, in which case it will never end.

Does the rain ever end on Kamino? Good thing we don't live there

I actually wanted to write so much more, and I wrote her a P.S. about a possible better way to live, but even then I barely had room, so I'll write to her exactly how I feel on this very blog post. It's not going to be shared with everyone, and the only one to be notified about it will be her. If you want to read it, fine, but this is personal, the kind of post where I don't tell anyone about it and let the people who really care read it for themselves. I know a significant few will see it and read it and they'll think it's a sweet thing for a brother to do, but I don't care about their appraisal of me. This post isn't about me, it's about my sister, but not without some epic music that compliments her.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, writing to my dear sister what I couldn't on the card, so here we go.


Rebecca, you honestly render me speechless sometimes, leading me to practice the dungeon master art of bullshitting your way through an encounter. When it comes to how you describe your problems in school and problems in life, you're talking to someone who knows what you're going through, and I can tell you that this is not going to be the high point in your life. Life is going to have it's ups and downs, and you're gonna be thrown all around by the giant waves that plague us all. Sometimes the advice of your family helps, sometimes it doesn't, but the point is you gotta take a risk and take said advice to heart. It may work for us and not for you, but only you can figure that out. Also, you don't know this for obvious reasons, but my advice especially comes in handy when it comes to TV shows you should watch. There's meaning and pain and happiness and love and art and death and things you may very well enjoy. The whole purpose of the TV shows I try to pass onto you are because of the meaning behind them, the meaning that other shows (*cough cough* disney) typically lack.

These shows are the four I highly suggest you watch, and you need to do more than just watch them. You have to imagine yourself as certain characters, imagine yourself in certain situations within the show. Normal people just watch TV shows for the sake of watching them, and don't take them in and absorb them and truly love them for the message they try to put across. Buffy TVS is meant to convey the message of growing up, and that's one of these that I really really think you should watch, since you're growing up as well. The normal people ignore the real messages behind shows, as I said, and only watch them for the sake of watching. Don't be normal, Rebecca, and don't watch them because I obligate you to. When I showed you Agents Of SHIELD, I implored you to watch the first 10 minutes, and the moment the 10 minutes were up, you went right back to your laptop. Actually watch them, watch the first season of all of them (especially Firefly) and really watch them and become one with them. That is how a TV show is meant to be consumed. Even if these aren't the shows you watch, make sure the shows you do watch are taken in like that.

TV shows aside, you still are amazing. The fact that you can suffer through sixth grade (my internal monologue has once again shifted to a Tim Minchin voice) and gain more friends in half a year than I did in two is a painful reminder of the knowledge that you're growing up. I know the pain of the divorce has aged us all emotionally, but the knowledge of you going to middle school only solidifies it: you're no longer the adorable child I knew as my little (size-wise) sister. You're far from being an adult, good on you, but that won't always be the case. Eventually you're going to wake up and it's your first day of high school, and then you're going to wake up once more and it'll be college, and then again and you'll be a grown woman, no longer the child I once had as my loved little (again, size-wise) sister. That's only the case for a short while longer, and you'll end up hating it as much as I will. Growing up is a horrible thing, Rebecca, absolutely horrible, because once you make your choice to grow up, emotionally and mentally, it's gone, all that innocence you once had, all the happy childhood that's now pointless.

You haven't read The Outsiders yet. As I recall, that's a 7th grade thing. It talks a lot about innocence and staying gold and all that, I recommend you read that over the summer, if I can have mom get it for your birthday. Apart from TV, works of literature like The Stranger, Catcher In The Rye, you should read them too. If you're going to grow up, Rebecca, I want you to grow up in a display of elegance. I want you to blossom like the flower you're going to be into a magnificent display of wonder. I've become something amazing with the stripping-away of my innocence, my growing up, so I want you to do something for me, something to grow up as slow as possible: be where you are, right now.

The slowest way to live, the easiest way to ignore your dread of the past or your anxieties of the future is to be here now. Concentrate on where you are, when you are. Concentrate on the coolness of the air, the brightness of the light, the feeling of your clothes against your skin. Live each moment, Rebecca, feeling everything there is to feel. The pain you're inevitably going to feel is going to be beautiful, and you're going to want to get in and feel it. Pain is beautiful, it's romantic, you're lucky to be alive, you're lucky to feel that pain. The pain and the anxiety makes you feel so so bad but you can't let that pain convince you to stop feeling every moment. There's the painful moments, and then there's the happy moments, the happy moments without pain, and those happy moments are why we live, the happy moments that are only made better by the presence of pain at other times. Even our current situation, no matter how painful, makes it so much better every other weekend when it's not present. The pain that seems to be rampant is only a temporary thing, no matter how much it seems permanent.

There's so much I want to say, Rebecca, so much I want to tell you, so much in life I want to prepare you for, that I can't just tell you in an insanely long blog post. Unfortunately, I lack the space and we both lack the time, as if I were to tell you everything you needed to really become an amazing adult, you'd already be one. I have faith, however, that my help will only be needed to a minor degree, that you have it all in hand. That's not always the case, I think you do need a nudge in the right direction occasionally, as do we all. Sometimes you can't just handle it yourself at all, sometimes you need help through and through, but sometimes you just need a push, sometimes you need that nudge in the right direction . I think once you let someone grab you by the shoulders and turn you the right way, you can make your way from there.

Be special, Rebecca, be fantastic, be you, despite what box others may try and fit you in. You're the best sister ever, and I love you to the ends of the earth. It doesn't matter how our current situation might be, you have me, and I have you, and that'll always be the case.

Happy birthday, Rebecca, and if you learn nothing else from this post, be here now, and be you now.