A Little Bit Older

Sometimes I can’t sleep at night. The memories of the past dance behind my eyelids and all I can do is lie awake and stare at the ceiling trying to figure out how we ended up here. If you had asked me when I was 19 where I saw my life ending up, I would’ve laughed in your face. At 19, I was just a wild college kid. I was living the life as a sorority girl – drinking too much, partying too hard, sleeping around and just being stupid. A year later, my brother died and everything came whirling into perspective for me. By 22, I had decided to pursue a PhD because it was subsidized and I realized I needed to get my ass in line. I met a guy at school, we fell in love, got engaged and everything looked like it was falling in place. By 25, I’d had my first miscarriage and my fiancé left me. At 26, I accepted a job with as a chemical consulate designing cosmetics and upheaved my life to France.

So how did I end up here? Here meaning 31 years old getting ready to turn 32, living an ocean away from my family, and not sure what I wanted to do with my life. That was a lie. I knew what I wanted to be doing. I wanted to be settling down: getting married and having kids – the whole nine yards, as the saying goes. Instead, I was getting ready to upheave my life again and move back across the ocean. I had no problem meeting great guys, I had a problem keeping great guys. So here I was 32 and single. When you’re 32 and single, you know what you have to lose? Nothing. You have nothing to lose so you do whatever you feel like doing.

I rolled over and sighed heavily as I saw the bright “2:43” on the alarm clock next to my bed. Quickly, I did the math in my brain; it should be almost 6PM on the west coast. I grabbed the laptop off the pillow on the other side of my bed and quickly opened Skype to see if my sister was online. The best part of her new marriage was that her husband was always travelling and it made her ten times more accessible than before. I needed to go over logistics of my move one more time with her. She could calm me down – she as good like that.

The soft sounds of the program rang through my otherwise silent apartment and I listened as the program indicated it was calling her.

“Why are you awake?” Her words rang through my bedroom and I laughed lightly. It was nice to see her face. Her blonde hair was pulled up into a bun on the top of her head and wisps were falling around her face. She looked so much like our mother in that moment that it made a giant smile break out across my face.

“What? No ‘Hello’ for your big sister?” She rolled her eyes. I could tell she answered on her phone and was in the middle of making dinner back home. The screen kept shaking and the camera was fogging up occasionally – presumably from the steam of whatever she was cooking.

“Hi. Hello. Nice to see you. What’s up?”

“My flight for California leaves today. Tomorrow for you, I guess” I reminded her with a grim smile. I’d already sent most of my essentials to her and was living out of my suitcase with the smaller things I needed. My job had offered to transfer me because they wanted more French speaking workers in the American office to communicate with the French offices easier. It was one thing to have English in both places, but getting French in both places proved to be slightly harder for them.

“I know. Dude, why the long face?” She was always so nonchalant. I guess that’s the main reason why she could be happy so easily. There were never any strings attached for her. She just took life as it came to her and rolled with the punches. It was a trait our brother and I hadn’t inherited and we were never certain where she got it from.

“I’m freaking out, Meg.” I confessed. “I’m leaving my entire life behind. You know when the last time I spoke English was?”

“What are we speaking right now?”

“You know what I mean! I couldn’t remember how to spell ‘dare’ the other day!”

“Oh my fuck. Calm down. It’ll be fine. You speak English fine – it’s your fucking native language. We got your boxes. They’re waiting for you in the guest room. I have a friend already lined up to show you apartments and houses when you get here. You have a job waiting for you, which you’re going to love. What is there for you to possibly worry about?”

“You have a family now! What does your husband think about this? You have a baby too. I’m going to be such a burden. What kind of older sister does this shit?”

For a long while she just stared at me before she laughed. “Shut up. My husband is fine with this – literally he doesn’t give two flying fucks. Yes, I have a baby and having an extra set of hands around the house would be fucking brilliant. You’re fucking fabulous with kids and Teej is a little nightmare somedays and I cannot wait to pawn him off on you. And mind you, big sister, that you let me live with you for literally 3 entire summers. So, like, I am barely repaying the favor here.”

“Teej? You actually call my nephew that?”

“Yea, it’s short for TJ. I think it’s cute.”

“You can’t give him a nickname for a nickname. Who are you?”

“I’m his mother. I’ll call him whatever the fuck I want.”

“But seriously, Teej?”

“Do you have any better suggestions?”

“Dude, Theo or Teddy or anything other than Teej.”

“I’m not calling him Teddy – that’s just morbid to call your baby the same thing as your late brother. And Theo’s such a grown-up name for a baby.”

“It wasn’t morbid to name him Theodore James after two dead people, though? And Teej is such a fuckboy name, sis.”

“Oh my God. Whatever. We are not having this conversation right now. You need to go to sleep. You need to stop panicking. And you need to stop mocking my baby’s name. Need I remind you that you’re named after two dead people too.”

“Is that Rubes, Meg?” This time it was his husband, Zack, asking the question and I saw him come into the background of the image on my computer screen holding baby Theo.

“Yea, tell her Teej isn’t a bad nickname for a baby.”

“I just call him Teddy.” He shrugged and looked at the little baby who had inherited my sister’s curly blond hair but was otherwise a spitting image of him. “Say hi to Auntie Ruby, bud.” He held the boy up and I waved to him. He smiled and blew a spit bubble at the screen which I took as a sign of endearment.

“Hey Zack, hi baby Theo.” I waved and could see Meghan rolling her eyes.

“You’re both ridiculous. My child is going to have identity problems when he grows up.” She murmured under her breathe just loud enough for both of us to hear her.

“You get in tomorrow night, right Ruby?” Zack asked and I nodded. I wasn’t fully sure how the timeline would work out with all the time changes but I figured that was what Meghan had told her and she was generally accurate with this kind of information.

“I believe so. Excited to have the big sister invading the love nest?” I jokingly asked even though the mild awkwardness of it still crept under my skin.

“If the big sister can change diapers, then absolutely.”

“I feel like you forget that you’re older than her, Zack.” Meghan chimed in with a small smirk on her face. As much as she loved reminding me that I was older than her, she also was always quick to remind others that I was still younger and not past my ‘prime’ as she referred to it.

“Not by much.” Zack replied with a small shrug.

“By like 3 years.” Meghan laughed lightly before setting the phone down propping it up so that she could use both of her hands for cooking.

“You make me sound like a cradle robber. Fucking hell.”

“Aren’t you?”

I burst out laughing at their bickering and they both were reminded that I was there over the phone and quickly apologized. We said our goodbyes shortly thereafter once Meg assured me that she would pick me up from the airport and that I had nothing to worry about because everything would work out fine. She had a way of calming me down when I got worried about the logistics of all the little details like this.

32 and single and getting ready to move across the globe to live with my baby sister, her husband, and their son. If that didn’t make me sound like a complete loser, I wasn’t sure what would.