I was listening to Brandi Carlile today and the song Turpentine came on.  The very first part of the song that always makes me think to my relationship with my siblings, but more so my brother than my sister since I consider my sister my friend.  The particular lines are:
“I watch you grow away from me in photographs
And memories like spies
And salt betrays my eyes again
I started losing sleep and gaining weight
And wishing I was was ten again
So I could be your friend again”

These lines always make me think of simpler times, growing up, when my cares in the world were as complicated as studying for an English test.  I don’t think so much about my being ten with my siblings (since my brother would have been 2 and my sister just born).  Rather it makes me think of a time when my relationship with my siblings was simple.  I think about how close my brother and I were…how he was my little buddy.  And I remember not knowing how to relate to a little sister who was so different from me (I didn’t like dresses, or pink, or dolls).  To this day I feel guilt for that disconnect between myself and my sister.  I am grateful that as we have both gotten older, we have become close like we never were when she was younger.  But I still hate that I wasn’t closer to her back in the day because she was a great kid with a good heart, and I just let the small, insignificant differences between us get in the way of really seeing that.  And what’s funny, is my brother, who I was really tight with, grew further away from me as he got older to the point where I can say I don’t even know him anymore.  I don’t know what is really Karl and what is a lie he tells me because he thinks or knows it is what I want to hear.

What I like about the lines of the song, is it makes me remember the times when the three of us would play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the back yard, or kick soccer balls against the garage, or play dogdge the baby apples, or play with the ninja turtle football mapping out running patterns in the yard.  There were times, where the universe would come together, and the three of us could play for hours without harsh words or tears.  I don’t remember specifics of those times, I just remember the feeling, the warmth, the happiness….really the simplicity of being young.

I’ve never been bothered by the age gap between myself and my siblings.  I think it is because it was the age difference that allowed me to prolong my “childhood” in the sense that I still would play with my brother and sister even when I was in high school.  And I don’t mean board games or video games.  I mean we would play with figurines or legos, using our imagination and creating our own worlds.  I often wonder if I would be such a purpetual kid if I didn’t have that age gap.  It is unfortunate that as an adult, it is no longer acceptable to just sit down and pretend, create my own worlds.  The only time it is acceptable is if you are with a young child, or it somehow contributes to some kind of adult “thing” (writing a book, creating a video game).  But if I were to sit down with my Transformers and actually just start playing, without a kid around, it would be seen as wierd.  And in my mind that is wierd.  Why does growing up mean we have to let go of those parts of ourselves?  I mean I understand that at a certain point in life you can’t live in a pretend world.  But why do you have to give up that world altogether.  I wonder if it was acceptable to play and pretend, would more people find the creative parts of themselves.  I guess an artist, or a musician, or a writer is someone that just never gave up that part of themselves.  They let the possibilities of their dreams become reality.  So maybe its my own fault I don’t play or pretend anymore.  Maybe I just stopped believing in my dreams and settled for what I could have in the moment…maybe I got lazy and I could no longer hold up my dreams or my imagination.

I know this is a ramble.  I guess it comes down to the fact that when I hear the beginning of Turpentine, and remember the good time with my siblings,  it makes me want to be a kid again.  It reminds me of the promise of being young, when I dreamt of being an astronaut or a vet and believed I could be one because I could be anything as long as I put my mind to it.  It reminds me of being free.  The freedom of escaping to my own world, where anything was possible, for hours.  But more than anything, a freedom from responsibility, and money and expectations.  The freedom of days in the sun, making a world we thought could never be broken apart by distance or drugs or anger or just because we lost ourselves in the process of growing up.