Since we were young, my sister Kate has been breathing down
my neck. (She’s not going to like that
image!) Though two years and two weeks younger than I, she has been right behind or surpassed
me in many (ie. "nearly all") of the typical child development moments and maturation rites of passage. I like to think this is because she is
exceptional, and not because I was developmentally challenged, but its
uncertain.
Case in point: She beat me to learning how to tie our own shoes by exactly one day. Sounds like a close race and that we had some kind of helicopter mom who chronicled our marks of development with anal precision. Except it was not that my sister was exactly one day younger than I when she mastered the old “loop-swoop-pull,” but that she was two years and two weeks and one day younger than I when she learned. What a jolt it must have been for this sartorially lazy young 6 (?) year old to see his precocious younger sibling walking around in shoelace Nikes she had tied herself and him still tripping or saddled in slip ons or worse...
“Oh this is something I can do by myself? Wait if my sister can do it…hmm.” |
I might still be in those gray wal mart specials if it weren't for her. Watching her gave me renewed motivation and on the day after she learned I learned. Competition is a strong motivator in the Ramsay household, but more on that later.
In terms of so many of the basic things of life, she was earlier and/or has excelled farther. Potty training, reading, music, SAT, GPA, on and on. I have a driven sister who even now is a wife and a mother of two kids under the age of three, who cooks and cleans with all natural ingredients making time for blogging about it throughout while I am none of those things. Except for the blogging part...for now.
I remember when we were baptized in our home church, and I preceded her by five whole minutes. Basically, she has been getting back at me ever since. And she goes for the jugular. My friends know that from a young age through college I developed and nurtured what could graciously be called an obsession with sports. Practiced them. Read about them. Dreamed about them. It became the epitome of Ramsay masculinity to drive and thrive in sports. But my sister said to herself, why just masculinity? Never knowing when to leave well enough alone, she added a byline in her resume that I regrettably never earned. "Former NCAA student-athlete" That's right, lettering in cross country at University of Dallas gave her the dinner table sports bragging right as well. It seems, even in physical competition, the most sacred of my passions, I will be ever looking to my left on the medal stand (ie. second place. My younger brothers and other sister may think that boastful on my part, but this blog isn't about them.)
But its okay. I have come to grips with it...as you can tell. No, really!
Anyway, by now you must be thinking to yourself why am I even bringing this up? Do I really have a point with all this “woe-is-me-my-sister-is-so-much-better” self-flagellation? Besides engaging with a blogger who has a wider readership network than my own, (pandering and flattery is apparently how you get read out here on the interweb) is this diatribe merely a cheap replacement for a much needed therapy session? Well, maybe, but bear with me and see.
If you have been with me since the beginning of my so far modest odyssey into blogging, and it's only been about a month so don’t be too pleased with yourself, you have noticed some format changes already. Indeed, I have added some links to other online places I inhabit, at least occasionally. I have given you an option to subscribe to my blog by email (seriously though, don’t you get too much email already?) And I put up a new profile pic of me from this past Christmas so you know exactly who you are dealing with here. Yet the most startling update is the happy faces who now smile back at you from my blog’s header. Surely, you agree they are a welcome alternative to the postmodern, foggy winter morning, random Google image background that preceded them.
I am pleased tremendously with how it looks…well mostly. First, the good. Those are the people I love the most. Its my family all caught in various states of mirth reminding me of good times past and promising ones to come. Also, this pictorial introduction gives me great things to write about for the near future. While I am am not oblivious that undoubtedly most of the current readership of this online journal find their faces staring back at themselves from that header (though two of them can’t read and another doesn’t know how to get on the internet), I am going to project the presence of people who don't know these delightful people and introduce you all to them over the next weeks. If you can’t wait, you can here a lot about all of them here, where many of their accolades have been compiled in richer and more entertaining prose than...I think we have enough self deprecation for one post.
That segue ways naturally into my slight hangup about my blog’s new look. Its not a big deal. I should get over it. But it lingers. What is it that bugs me you ask? Let me say it this way.
Who do you think designed it for me?
Take a second.
I'll just wait.
Yep. Because you are a critical reader and realize now who the other person isin my family who blogs and that person blogged earlier and blogs better than me, then you know that the most ingenious element of this forum for my wistful meanderings so far was the product of...
 |
Yes, because of her wizardry with photo editing and her repository of great images of family memories, Kate has helped “spruce up” this one-stoplight-town kind of a blog into at least a stoplight-and-post-office-town kind of a blog, and I am grateful.
Truth be told I jest at my sister's dexterity for two reasons: a) because I am very proud of her, a unique kind of pride that only big brothers can have, and, b) because the the only way I could ever get back at her for all the years of surpassing me in virtually everything would be to spend several hundred words gushing about her. She is the source of so much joy in my life...
...and so much encouragement, and not least of which in my effort to start or restart blogging my life. Also, it was her birthday last week and the baptism of her second child, my niece Lucy June. So life is good with my sister around.
What is more, dear reader(s) (fingers crossed), don’t lament my utter defeat in my unofficial sibling rivalry with my sister, because there are at least two consolations I hold onto.
First, I can be sure at least one person will read this post to its completion, because truly who can resist reading about themselves?
And second, below is the kitchen door frame of the house she and I grew up in, where for much of our upbringing a favorite family tradition was to trace our vertical progress.
Each of my four siblings are on the frame multiple times, but because you don't have a microscope on you, here's a little visual aid...
At long last, victory!
(You’ll never catch me on this one sis! God’s got my
back. And it will be okay that I was
made six-three and you five-six and three quarters. Happy Belated. Thanks for the help with the blog. Much love always.)
