growing pains

I keep having this reoccurring dream. The context of the dream is always the same—I’m set to travel by plane—but the storyline varies after that. Sometimes I don’t leave enough time to pack and I miss my flight. Sometimes I manage to pack in time, but then external forces—traffic, other passengers—prevent me from boarding. Sometimes I make it on the flight, but the whole plane goes down enroute. Google, in all its vague wisdom, tells me that such dreams signal a need for change in my life. In reality, I think I’m just trying to find a way to everyone I love.

At the beginning of the summer, before our familial axis shifted, Mimi and Lilly came to visit for our third annual sister trip. They’re seven and ten years younger than me and it wasn’t until a few years ago that we all started to become true friends. But now they’re their own people, so funny and wise and beautiful and I’m so proud of them my heart aches. During their visit we found cheap bikes and cruised all around the city; we strolled museums and ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the park and solved crossword puzzles to our hearts’ content. We went to the mountains and estate sales and IKEA and vintage stores with painfully cool employees and Mimi and I got our noses pierced; morning and night we both leaned over the bathroom sink, our noses dunked in salty water. It was all so perfect—I knew that as it was happening, and yet my efforts to make time stand still proved futile.

Eventually, inevitably, our time came to an end. On the drive to the airport we distracted ourselves until we couldn’t anymore and then we clung to each other and cried. Somehow I mustered the strength to send them through those awful sliding glass doors. I felt my heart walk through with them. I’m not sure why things happen the way that they do. Life now is so different than the girls and I could’ve ever imagined ten, five, even two years ago. With bonds so close it’s a bit absurd how far-flung our lives are. We do our best to revel in each other’s daily happenings but things still slip through the cracks. Maybe one day we’ll be neighbors, but until then I’ll be plagued by planes. Love hurts and all that.