Today I wrote a poem for my sisters yearbook that will be included with a picture of the three of us together:
We've been a team, through the good times and the bad,
Growing up with a marine mom and dad
You burned the pancakes and I burned the rice.
Alyssa ate it all just to be nice.
As you grow up and move on with your life,
Remember our team and the times without strife.
Now I know it's kind of cheesy with the rhyming and everything but every time I read this back to myself I kept help but get extremely sentimental and want to give them both a huge hug. My babies are growing up. I can remember chasing them around the house back when I had a high voice and rat-tail. I remember sliding down the stairs on a box and dressing them up in my clothes and taking them out looking like thugs. All those cold winter nights spent watching movie after movie after movie, which we rented free from the library. I remember helping my sister dispose of the beers in her closet and watching her interact with my parents while hungover the next morning. I remember the games that we played at all of those restaurants and my father's irritation with our "immature behavior".
I distinctly remember thinking when I was younger, like 12, that I can't wait to see how turn out when they got older. I couldn't wait to see them driving cars and playing sports and becoming people. I'm so much older than them that I feel like I had a part in raising them. I was the one watching them on all of those Saturday nights that my parents wanted to get out of the house and building forts with the couches and the pillows and not being able to touch the living room carpet floor because it was lava. I was the driving them around everywhere when I was able to drive. I gave them their first taste of alcohol and took them to the movies that my parents wouldn't let them see.
And now look at them. My youngest sister is already talking about getting her license next summer and what colleges she wants to go to and my other sister is already driving and will head off to school next fall. They're becoming real people. They're past that awkward stage and are starting to enter the real world. I feel like the band is dismembering and we're all starting solo careers. Will our music be just as good without the other members? How weird is that house going to be without us in it? When does the old people smell start to set in?
I guess when I was younger I skipped all of these thoughts. I pictured them older but I pictured us all under the same roof forever. I never pictured us leaving and living in different states and starting families. I never even pictured them dating for that matter. I just pictured them older.
Now I try to picture what we'll all be like when we're even older than we are. I try to see us as 40 years olds. i try to picture our families and the gray hairs and house and the husbands and wives but I really don't see anything. It's just a blur. I can only see forward in 5 year increments. I can picture them in college and in California and what It'll be like at that point but beyond that I've realized is too vague and distant to get any type of clear possibility imagined.
I will have grey hair one day, I know that. One day, without even realizing I will become old and start doing old people things. All of my friends will be old and we'll throw old people parties at my house which don't even seem like parties but are more of gatherings. there won't be any drunken debauchery and wrestling or thrown beer bottles. I'll be playing punk and rap songs which annoy the kids and singing karaoke in the basement with my beer belly hanging out of my small t-shirt and outdated trousers. I might start collecting football cards and buy a Porsche at some point and wearing sunglasses and spiking the little hair that i have left. Or maybe I won't and I'll go "the road less traveled" like I hope to God I do.
I wish I could just skip that phase and go straight to the old folks home where I can harass the young nurses and play poker and dominoes with my boys. Just like I used to wish I could skip over high school and go straight to being able to drive and drink and have my own house. I hate the thought of being boring and normal yet I strive for it at the same time.
Why are my twenties just as confusing as my teens?
We've been a team, through the good times and the bad,
Growing up with a marine mom and dad
You burned the pancakes and I burned the rice.
Alyssa ate it all just to be nice.
As you grow up and move on with your life,
Remember our team and the times without strife.
Now I know it's kind of cheesy with the rhyming and everything but every time I read this back to myself I kept help but get extremely sentimental and want to give them both a huge hug. My babies are growing up. I can remember chasing them around the house back when I had a high voice and rat-tail. I remember sliding down the stairs on a box and dressing them up in my clothes and taking them out looking like thugs. All those cold winter nights spent watching movie after movie after movie, which we rented free from the library. I remember helping my sister dispose of the beers in her closet and watching her interact with my parents while hungover the next morning. I remember the games that we played at all of those restaurants and my father's irritation with our "immature behavior".
I distinctly remember thinking when I was younger, like 12, that I can't wait to see how turn out when they got older. I couldn't wait to see them driving cars and playing sports and becoming people. I'm so much older than them that I feel like I had a part in raising them. I was the one watching them on all of those Saturday nights that my parents wanted to get out of the house and building forts with the couches and the pillows and not being able to touch the living room carpet floor because it was lava. I was the driving them around everywhere when I was able to drive. I gave them their first taste of alcohol and took them to the movies that my parents wouldn't let them see.
And now look at them. My youngest sister is already talking about getting her license next summer and what colleges she wants to go to and my other sister is already driving and will head off to school next fall. They're becoming real people. They're past that awkward stage and are starting to enter the real world. I feel like the band is dismembering and we're all starting solo careers. Will our music be just as good without the other members? How weird is that house going to be without us in it? When does the old people smell start to set in?
I guess when I was younger I skipped all of these thoughts. I pictured them older but I pictured us all under the same roof forever. I never pictured us leaving and living in different states and starting families. I never even pictured them dating for that matter. I just pictured them older.
Now I try to picture what we'll all be like when we're even older than we are. I try to see us as 40 years olds. i try to picture our families and the gray hairs and house and the husbands and wives but I really don't see anything. It's just a blur. I can only see forward in 5 year increments. I can picture them in college and in California and what It'll be like at that point but beyond that I've realized is too vague and distant to get any type of clear possibility imagined.
I will have grey hair one day, I know that. One day, without even realizing I will become old and start doing old people things. All of my friends will be old and we'll throw old people parties at my house which don't even seem like parties but are more of gatherings. there won't be any drunken debauchery and wrestling or thrown beer bottles. I'll be playing punk and rap songs which annoy the kids and singing karaoke in the basement with my beer belly hanging out of my small t-shirt and outdated trousers. I might start collecting football cards and buy a Porsche at some point and wearing sunglasses and spiking the little hair that i have left. Or maybe I won't and I'll go "the road less traveled" like I hope to God I do.
I wish I could just skip that phase and go straight to the old folks home where I can harass the young nurses and play poker and dominoes with my boys. Just like I used to wish I could skip over high school and go straight to being able to drive and drink and have my own house. I hate the thought of being boring and normal yet I strive for it at the same time.
Why are my twenties just as confusing as my teens?
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