On My Sister, Part Two: The Mirror in Which Two Are Seen as One

My sister came home from work one day this week to find me on her couch, smack in the middle of a cry. The heaving, guttural, Oprah-ugly kind of cry.

"Kelly? Why are you crying?"

Her voice is affected, ribboned with concern. 

"It's the change. All the change. I can't do it. I can't do it. I just can't do it."
(One of my idiosyncrasies is that when I am experiencing any sort of heightened emotion I repeat key phrases three times.)

Earlier that day, I officially accepted a job offer. It's an instructional leadership position for which I applied months ago. A job I had no expectation of actually getting. 

And when I was offered the job (after applying two years in a row), I was of course, surprised.  But I wasn't sure I wanted it anymore. Not right now. Not with all of my worldly possessions in a 10X10 storage unit. Not while I am spending the summer in Louisville. Not with the upheaval that is my private life.

Because I love teaching. And for ten years, I've been at the same school, and for seven years been in the same classroom, room 206.

All of my adult working life, from 22 to 32 - those formative years that took me from girl to woman, have been spent in that school. 

It's the place I grew up. (Making a hell of a lot of mistakes along the way.)

It's the place where I met my best friends and cultivated my deepest friendships: Sara, Jessica, Regina, and Lori. Teachers and kindred spirits.

It's the place where, strangely, I feel in control and most like my real, true self.
It's the place where, despite whatever is happening in my personal life, I find meaning and purpose.

So the idea of change, even if it's a "good on paper" opportunity, makes me break down. 

For all of the bravery I'm trying to muster this summer, I'm terrified. 

To fail, maybe even to succeed.

But mostly to lose what's been the absolute constant in my life.

I only know teaching. I don't know anything else.

My relationships with my students are better than most relationships I have with adults, quite frankly. And that's not necessarily a good thing. But it's true. Because I've spent more time on teaching than on any other area in my life.

Despite all that, I said yes to the job because there's something deep within that compels me to take it. Even though I'm scared shitless. Even though I might be a whopping failure and disappoint the principal of the school who pursued and hired me despite the fact that I'm probably not even qualified for the position.

Because I realize I can't keep making choices that make me feel safe. Not if I really want to grow as a human.

So that's why I am crying. Because I feel like I'm on a precipice.

I tearfully try explain most of this to my sister, but she already knows.

So this is what she does: she get me off the couch, puffy-faced and still whimpering, to go buy a bottle of wine.

And on the way out to the car, this is what she says:
"I'm your constant, Kelly. Don't cry. It will be okay, and if it doesn't work out and you hate it, you can move here, and I will support you and you will be *Larry's house-mom and we can live together for forever."

I nod. Sniff. A baby cry.

I feel immediately better.

{My sister, card shark, on a rainy vacation day in the Outer Banks}

When my sister first went away to college, I wrote out a couple of stanzas from Adrienne Rich's poem, "The Mirror in Which Two Are Seen As One" and gave it to her. She still has it, ten or eleven years later, leaned against the back of one of her book shelves.

She is the one you call sister
you blaze like lightning about the room
flicker around her like fire
dazzle yourself in her wide eyes
listing her unfelt needs
thrusting the tenets of your life
into her hands

She moves through a world of India print
her body dappled
with softness, the paisley swells at her hip
walking the street in her cotton shift
buying fresh figs because you love them
photographing the ghetto because you took her there

Why are you crying dry up your tears

we are sisters
words fail you in the stare of her hunger
you hand her another book
scored by your pencil
you hand her a record
of two flutes in India reciting

{And us, at Molly Malone's Quiz Night earlier this week}

Katie, the one who I call sister.

The one who overlooks the fact that I'm a fledgling and a coward, swaddles me with love and acceptance, buys me a bottle of wine, rents us a Harry Potter movie, and makes the whole world seem a bit less daunting.

Sisters - "the mirror in which two are seen as one."

(Note to readers who may be unfamiliar: Larry is my sister's attention-whore of a cockapoo, named after the University of Louisville basketball player, Larry O'Bannon.)