LJ Idol Week 10: Take a Hike

[flipflop_diva]

“Oh, go take a hike!”

It was a common refrain in my house growing up. Mostly between my sister and I after we heard our dad use it a few times when he was retelling a story. We thought it was hilarious. Of course, when we used it, it was usually followed by an angry throwing of an innocent stuffed animal across the room or someone stepping on poor Barbie’s head, trying to squash her non-existent brains.

Sometimes it was followed by worse, when the other was too stubborn to “take a hike”. Mostly kicking and hair pulling. We never scratched, though. Even in childhood, drawing blood was somehow the line.

We’re four years apart, my sister and I. Her name is Elizabeth. Now I — and everyone else — call her Liz. Back then I called her Lizard. She called me Dorky. Sometimes not in a loving way.

We got along most of the time, because we had to. We were the only two kids in our household. There was no one else to play with. So we played together. Legos and Barbies and Monopoly and Super Mario Bros.

But we fought like crazy too. We’re sisters. It’s in our blood.

“Why can’t you just get along?” our poor mother, an only child herself, would moan.

“That’s not how it works,” we would tell her.

We fought about everything. Who didn’t clean up. Who broke Mom’s favorite wind chime. Who got to pick what to watch on TV. Why it wasn’t fair that someone got something the other didn’t get.

It got better, and worse, when we were teenagers. My sister fought more with my mom then. They would scream at each other for hours. I hid in my room so no one would start screaming at me on accident.

On weekends, I did my thing. Liz did hers. There was barely any kicking and hair pulling, but there was also barely any time spent together, apart from an occasional trip to the mall with our friends.

And then it was time for me to leave for college.

My sister was on the colorguard in high school, like I had been before her. She had summer practice the morning my parents and I were leaving to head up to Oregon. We drove to the school, found my sister and waved her over so we could say goodbye.

And then, two girls who didn’t really even know before that morning if they liked each other ninety percent of the time, stood hugging and clinging in the middle of our high school campus, sobbing hysterically.

It took saying goodbye to realize that somewhere in the fourteen years we had been living together, we actually had become friends.

But that’s not where the story ends, because life goes on, and distance changes things. Again for better and worse. We didn’t fight anymore —not really — when I came home on break. We spent time together willingly. But the visits were infrequent. I was busy in college. She was busy in high school. Sometimes I’d talk to her on the phone for a few minutes on a weekend, but I mostly heard about her life through my parents.

She grew up and went to college. I went to graduate school across the country in Boston. She came to visit for a week. We toured the city and spent lots of money and stayed up late every night just talking. She became a little more of a friend and less of just a sister. But still, the visits were infrequent. So were the phone calls. I liked her, and she liked me but it wasn’t the type of relationship you see on TV.

The defining moment came two years later. She was twenty-one. I was twenty-five. Our mother had passed away a month earlier. We were home to visit our father, had gone to see some family friends for the day. We were driving to my dad’s house together, late at night, the L.A. freeways oddly quiet for once.

We were talking. Really talking. About our dad, our mom, our life we had growing up. Who we were and who we wanted to be. It was in that car, that night, on a random L.A. freeway, that it kind of hit us.

We were the only ones who understood what it was like to lose our mom. We were the only ones who had the memories of her that we had. We were the only ones we could really talk to about everything.

That night, in a way I didn’t know then, she became more than just my sister, more than just a friend. She became one of my best friends in the whole world, and to this day, she still is.

A few weeks after that night on the freeway, we went to scatter my mother’s ashes. Up in the lake we had been going to since we were kids.

It was cold out, a breeze in the air, the water rippling slightly. It was beautiful and clear and you could see all the trees in the distance.

My sister looked at me and smiled. “Take a hike?” she said, and I knew she was thinking about all those moments of our childhood.

I smiled back. “I’d love to.”


Thank you for reading! This was written for Week 10 of therealljidol. Voting will be up later. If you would like to read any of the other entries for this week's topic, you can find them here.

Comments

[eternal-ot.livejournal.com]

Aww <3 This was an amazing take on the prompt. Loved how it starts and ends with a hike. A good read.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

A lovely remembrance of your childhood, and your sister-friend.

[rayaso.livejournal.com]

This was a great tale from your past, and you wrote it very well. I'm sure your parents wished you were better friends with your sister growing up, but that's something that can't be forced. She would have been happy to see how close you've become as adults.

[mamas-minion.livejournal.com]

this is wonderful take on the prompt and nice way to tell of the relationship between you and your sister.

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

It's so nice that you've become so close to your sister, and yes-- your siblings are the only ones who understand what it's like to lose a parent, or what it was like to grow up in your family. Those memories are richer because they are shared. I'm often surprised by things my younger sister remembers that I'd forgotten about-- she's the keeper of more of my past than I would have expected!

[xlovebecomesher.livejournal.com]

Beautiful <3

[d0gs.livejournal.com]

i loved your take on this. the ending is so touching <3

[my-name-is-jenn.livejournal.com]

This was a beautiful take on the prompt. ♥