Hey K –
I’ve been thinking about you a lot this week. Obsessing, really. I’ve also been exhausted, which is definitely related. I sleep 10-12 hrs a night and still struggle to get out of bed in the morning. Of course, you probably know the reason for all of this – I turn 42 on Saturday.
42
42
42
It looms so large. It has for a while. You were 42 when it all ended. Just a few months older than I am now. It’s so weird to imagine that state – the world out of order.
Remember how great your 42nd birthday was? I’m not sure I’ve ever had a birthday as great as that one was for you. Worlds! In Boston! And we saw one of the greatest nights of women’s long programs ever! I’m certain that’s not hyperbole I’m using just because it was a night we were there in person. Ashley Wagner brought the place down! So much fun.
Ok, we need to talk about this a little more than one paragraph’s worth. Remember when Javier Fernandez was the best men’s skater and then we saw Dick Button on the way out and you asked who he liked best that night and he said, ‘Oh, I think you know who it was!’ and laughed? And remember when we saw Michelle Kwan, Queen of All Ice Things, in that lounge area? I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk to her. That was our one chance.
Also, everyone skated to the awful new Les Mis movie soundtrack. DREADFUL! How dare they?
And we took photos at the step and repeat? I did my beautiful charlotte for the cameras. NOT AT ALL DREADFUL! It still makes me laugh so hard. I wish I had the photos of it. That’s one of those jokes nobody will ever get the way you did. Maybe I’ll dust off the old charlotte on Saturday, just to give myself a laugh.
Then remember how we killed time at that bar afterwards until we could get an Uber home? And I was obsessively watching Chorie on the doggy boarding cams? And you told me what a weirdo stalker I was being to my own dog?
Actually, I think about Chorie and that trip a lot. I arrived at your place when you weren’t home yet and Henry, the building manager, caught me in the lobby taking her out for a walk. He told me she wasn’t allowed there and I had to take her to be boarded almost immediately. You were so upset. You thought I wouldn’t come visit as much if I couldn’t bring her to stay with you.
That story hurts to remember. I hate that you had to waste energy on being upset about that. I hate that I did too. It was the last trip up there to see you for both me and Chorie. We’d be back in a few months but you would no longer be there. Henry would ask me how my dog was doing often. He was a nice man. He never wanted to tell me she wasn’t welcome.
Anyway, I digress…
I don’t want to turn 42. It makes me feel sick. I don’t want to be older than you. But of course I also don’t want my story to end yet. An impossible contradiction. None of it feels right.
I’m barely planning to celebrate. I booked a massage and I’ll probably go out to dinner. I don’t know. Maybe if I don’t do much, the universe won’t notice I’m a year older. Maybe I won’t either.
Seems unlikely.
I do think I might have one of our favorite kind of nights – doing whatever I feel like doing. We both know it will likely involve drinking prosecco and either watching Dateline or old comedy specials.
Omg! Wait! I recently found Dave Chappelle’s Killin’ Them Softly on HBO on demand. I can’t believe I didn’t write to you just to tell you that. ‘Get it together, Grouch!’ ‘I…didn’t know I couldn’t do that…’ I know we sometimes had conversations that were just quotes from that special. The best.
Yes, I think that’s what I’ll do. Maybe it will feel like you’re here with me, just like old times. I would like that.
Alright, enough of my rambling. I just really wanted to talk to you about all this. But now, as Dave would say – zip-a-dee-doo-dah bye-bye!
Love,
B
Postcards to My Sister 