My big sister is old enough to be my mother. It’s not a thought that I have often, unless someone asks her age and realizes wow, she’s sixteen years older than you? Considering I have yet to meet anyone else with such an age gap between siblings, however, I can’t help but turn the thought over in my head, prodding at it to see what might come of it.
We’re both members of a baby-faced family; Jen is thirty-nine, but is often mistaken for a graduate student on the campus she teaches theater at. While visiting her during her first week of classes, I remember an undergraduate approaching my bemused sister and asking her if she was the T.A. At least, she pointed out over tea later, they don’t think I’m an undergrad anymore.
It’s funny how you tend to want what you don’t have, even if others would kill for what you’ve got. Jen has refused to admit defeat about looking thirty instead of forty, and goes to war with what she knows best: costumes. Years of dressing up, down, backwards and diagonally have taught her how to look the part in a given situation, from the Lady Olivia in Twelfth Night to a nervous-ecstatic bride in her own wedding. The only problem is, her anxiety to look her age is her own downfall; she chooses clothes that would look classy on a lady in her fifties, but winds up making her look like a frumpy thirty-year-old. Foiled again.
Maybe it’s the source of her chagrin that keeps me from thinking about her as older. After all, she’s been older than me from the start, so in my mind, nothing has changed. She’s still the ageless big sister I used to wave at during her performances, announcing to anyone in sight that that’s my sister!
It could also be that, for someone who is so skilled at playing a part on the stage, she doesn’t do very well at acting like someone about to start her forties. While I sat at her desk during that first class and watched her introduce the students to their Theater Appreciation course, I saw the quiet energy under the surface that had always been there. Her movements had always been graceful, deliberate to the point where her crumpling a piece of paper or throwing away a piece of trash seems to have its own, distinct Jen-ness to it. And with every quiet scrape of the chalk against the chalkboard, I caught a twinkle of the eye, a twitch of the lips, the faintest thread of a hum from her throat.
Granted, Jen doesn’t have quite as adventurous a life as she used to, at least in my younger self’s view. She fell in love with acting in elementary school; by high school, she managed to get hired for touring troupes not only in Virginia, but that went as far as Tennessee. At five years old, Tennessee sounded as distant as Hawaii did, albeit with a little less swimming involved to get there. So when we went to visit her during one of her shows in her university years, I was excited enough to tell everyone we saw that we were seeing a play and my sister was the star and do you know how far away Tennessee is?
Or maybe a more accurate observation would be that her idea of adventure has changed. Instead of traveling in groups, staying in dormitories and eating as cheaply as possible to make her money stretch, she enjoys having a steady roof over her head. After all, with a home comes all of the lovely little amenities--like dependable running water and husbands to fix things when the water won’t behave. Rather than seek out her next casting in unusually-located warehouses and storage rooms so early in the morning she didn’t bother going to bed the night before, she participates in at least two shows every year through her university. She’s directed Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors and Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, and played the role of Arlene in the musical Baby and a few walk-on roles in Bat Boy, all without having to leave town.
A student asks a question, and Jen’s eyebrows lift with a silent question in turn as she listens to him. Then, with the same paced deliberation she’s used to write her name on the board and hand out the syllabus, she tells him that yes, it would be best if you showed up to class as often as possible. Then, with that twinkle in her eye, she adds in the same mild-mannered tone, I’d also recommend doing the homework, too. It should be pretty painless for both of us.
Age and appearances are so important in everyday life, whether or not we agree with it. Jen has been forced to endure compliments where someone would wish aloud that they looked as young as my sister does.
However, after the class finishes, I can’t help but point out the age situation to my sister, as she debates wearing a stuffy cardigan to her meeting that day. You know, if you did look as old as you wanted to, people might mistake you for my mom instead of my sister, I tease.
That stops her for a moment, and her expression fades into a thoughtful frown as she considers this point. Then, she purposely slides the cardigan off of her shoulders and heads to the mirror to put her contacts in instead of simply wearing her glasses. Yeah, you might be right.
(Word count: 929)
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