The youngest in our family arrived only a year and three months after I came into this world. We could have been virtually twins -- except for the fact that we were nothing alike. We even looked nothing alike. While I was among the tallest in my class, large-boned, and plump, T was tiny, frail, and so thin that mom feared she had tuberculosis (she didn't). Growing up, I was such the chatterbox that I generally received low marks for Conduct (lowest was for PE); my one appearance at the principal's office was for talking in class. My sister, on the other hand, was so shy that during her only trip to the principal's office, for her admissions interview, she wouldn't say a word. Alarmed, mom had me pulled out of my first-grade class to sit beside my sister and encourage her to talk, or at least to answer questions.
My head was always buried in books; T's was lifted toward the stars. My childhood career goal was to be a writer and she wanted to be an astronomer. At 18 I left my family to study college abroad, while T remained home to finish her studies. I transferred from school to school, switching majors a few times, collecting a couple of degrees along the way. She started and finished at the same university, and then went on to another to get her master's degree.
I swept through a tornado of relationships for a few years, many lasting no more than a few months; she can count her boyfriends on less than one hand. I've been through two marriages in 18 years, both ending quietly and civilly, thankfully, as I refuse to fight with anyone I've ever been in love with. And T, who bore impertinent questions and unkind comments about her single status for the same two decades, is getting married for the first time. And though it was somewhat unexpected for us, I knew instinctively that it was not a rash decision on her part. As with everything my sister does, it was made only after careful thought and a healthy dose of caution, even if it appeared to happen so soon.
If there's anything I've learned about this latest development it's that we've got to be true to ourselves and proceed at our own pace. Which is difficult to do when you've got so many supposedly well-meaning people imposing their own expectations on you, based on nothing about you and everything about themselves.
My sister and I found love in completely different ways, just as different as we are. I would argue with anyone who would judge whose path was the better one; both of us were simply being true to ourselves, making decisions we felt we had to make based on the risks we were comfortable taking.
It's never too late to find the love of your life -- whether it's someone or something, incidentally -- which my good friend M can also attest to. A couple of years ago, at the age of 45, she married a man who had a high school crush on her from afar and who still cherishes her to this day. Just as my sister had told me recently, M also said that she knew she'd met "the one" and, at her age, what was the point of waiting when you were already sure? To borrow a line from one of my all-time favorite rom-coms When Harry Met Sally, "...when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."
T and M had always known what they were looking for, but they didn't stick around waiting for it. They followed through with their own plans and lived as they wanted to -- and when they found someone to share their lives with, they happily made room for him. I think the key is to keep open to new experiences always, never believing, not for a moment, that there's a cap or an expiration date to finding happiness. And if it's love that you find, it doesn't matter when it happens, only that you do.
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