passion...schmassion

Day 10063: The Skinny on the Sista

I have been remiss, dear Sista. In my quest to keep you up-to-date on my going ons, I have neglected to talk about us… so here goes… ode to Sista…

Sista is beautiful. She’s lovely inside and out. She’s got the salsa moves, the surfer babe moves, and the boarder chick moves. She’s down to earth, glamorous and incredibly brilliant. She’s everything that I’m not, and everything that I want to be. Except the salsa… that’s 100% hers.

We didn’t always get along – typical sibling rivalries and jealousies. Little things, minute hatreds, occasional contempts. Things that drove us completely up the wall back then, and yet, I wouldn’t be able to remember a single example now if my life depended in it. When riled, she liked to throw things though. I think my bedroom wall still bears the mark of an orange pencil-crayon. But fair is fair… I did try to chop of her finger with a butter knife one cold, blustery winter day… and plot to kill her on numerous of occasions when she pissed me off.

But we got through our adolescence and moved on to adulthood. She was like the older sister in many ways – broke down the barriers, pushed the envelope, toed the line. I was happy being nobody… I really didn’t exist until three years ago. I dreamt through high school, and slept through university. Consciousness for me, came at the age of 24. She was the independent rebel from day one.

We spent the past three years doing almost everything together. She was my first climbing partner, the Duckie’s first pacer and even managed to drag me out to salsa classes on the very, very, extremely rare occasion. We even passed the silly CA exams together… though she did much, much better than I did (on my third time around).

Then she moved - first to Texas and then to Cali. For work, she said…to get away. So she packed up and moved with less than a week’s notice, flying home only on the rare occasion… starting a new life, new friends, the works. My gosh she’s brave. I had dreamt about it for years, gotten only so far as to start looking for a job on the West Coast, but I never followed through. And still, I don’t think I’d have the guts to.

First she said nine months, and now she’ll be gone a year and a half. Time flies. It feels like yesterday that we drove her to the airport and waved goodbye as she went into Immigrations and tried to get a T1 Visa on a Saturday morning… I was a wee bit hung over from our Halloween/Going Away party the night before. You can’t really tell from the pictures though. And yeah, I went on a pub crawl that day to drink my sorrows away…

I miss her. Miss talking to her at night and asking for boy advice. Miss stumbling out of my bed at three in the morning on a Tuesday when the dog paws at my door because she wants to go say Hi to her Yee-Yee who just got home from salsa. Miss our spur of the moment picnics… I hate coming home to an empty house – always have. And that three hour time difference – makes it really hard to talk on the phone every night like I want to, but can’t seem to manage.

She’s having the time of her life – working hard, catching the swells of the Pacifica. I’m admittedly a wee bit jealous – who wouldn’t be… sweet deal, great weather, new friends, fancy schmancy new car every couple of weeks. Fact is, even though she has it great, everyone has their own lives... life goes on. I’m still climbing, still dragonboating, still snowboarding – still doing the things we used to do together. Just doing it with other people, okay… really, doing it with Triscuit who’s become in a way, a surrogate best friend (but in a completely different way, of course).

Sure, I wish she was here – wish she’d come home more often… oh wait… I mean, wish I could go visit her more often. But this is good for her, and good for me, too. We’re experiencing different things and growing up as individuals. But yeah… the teleport idea is a good one… that way I could hop into the teleporter, catch some waves in shark infested waters and be back for work Monday morning… if only.