Sometimes I go to the movies just to feel close to my sister. She hasn’t physically departed, but our lives have diverged in such a way that one is hardly there to greet the other when she comes home.
We’ve still got our record for now. Ten days is the longest we’ve 
gone without seeing each other. When our work schedules fail to align, she creeps into my room in the middle of the night and lies across my feet like a cat, purring and hissing through the details of her day. I murmur my suggestions at her with sleep-induced wisdom. Unless there’s a family emergency, we have to schedule at least a month in advance if we plan to be somewhere simultaneously on a Saturday.
So I sometimes go to her workplace to feel close to her. I nestle my head into the plush red seats and kick my feet up. I munch on over-salted popcorn and let it get stuck in between my teeth. I take comfort in knowing that she’s out there in the lobby, hustling and bustling, punching the button on her in-office radio, and cursing her employees to hell. I smile because she loves what she does. When I meet her after the movie is over, she rolls her eyes and launches into an anecdote about the people she’s managing. She rushes through her words, knowing like I know, that her work radio will truncate our together time at any minute. When it does, we exchange laughs, then part ways, shouting an exaggerated “Okay, girl, bye now!” across the lobby.
Yes, sometimes I sit through a movie– with my short attention span and low tolerance for gimmicky romcoms– just to feel close to my sister. In the same way that she used to find me in the corner of a couch, and curl up at my hip while I read. She didn’t come for the benefit of my attention; she didn’t get to hear the story. She just wanted my presence. She was content there, ear to my hip, blinking her curious eyes at whatever surrounded us. She soaked up what she needed from me just by witnessing me doing my thing.
I think that’s what eternal love is: not being attracted by ideas or similarities, palms or lips, mouths or genitals, but being magnetized to someone at your core. I think eternal love is a patient witness. It’s not worrying about growing apart, because you know your souls will always find a way to reconnect without interfering. I think eternal love is not wanting to disrupt a person or what they’ve become, but just wanting to watch, to witness, to feel their presence, and to be a part of it somehow.
And so we wait. My sister will undoubtedly read this post. She might share it on Twitter. She might text me a quick “aw, Ro” on her lunch break. If I’m not swamped, I might text her back: “Cut it out, get outta town.” And we’ll go on about our regularly scheduled programming. And we’ll wait. Our paths will converge, and diverge, and converge again. She’ll place a ticket on hold for me at the counter. I’ll leave my bedroom door unlocked. I’ll meet her at the movies. She’ll come into my room. She’ll lay across my feet and we’ll discuss everything but this: the realest, most eternal love I’ve ever known.
This post is part of Write Your Ass Off April (Day 6, Love) a Twenties Unscripted 10-Day Writing Challenge. Catch up with my other #WYAOApril posts: Day 1. Surrender. Day 2. Ascend. Day 3. Heal. Day 4. Spill. Day 5. Ignite.
I’ve been looking forward to all of your WYAOApril posts. What amazes me the most is how many topics you’ve spun into gold with these prompts-family, sisterhood, writing, self-image, forgiveness, and the list goes on. Maybe we should do WYAO every month. Because 10 essays from Roconia Price within 30 days are truly a treat.
This was amazing. The love you and Bee have for each other is something incredible. I think it’s one of the reasons why I love being around the both of you. It’s pure, it’s genuine, and it’s the good kind of consuming. <3
You da one baby 🙂
Golden. Something woke me up this morning, saying I needed to go catch up on your blog posts. So glad this was the first one I stumbled upon. The title caught my eye.
The type of relationship that you have with your sister is the kind I dream about having with mine. We are a lost cause but I love so much that people like you and your sister give me hope that maybe my kids will be each others best friends one day. Well, now that I’m all in my feelings I’m going to go. *hugs*
I just read this because she shared it on Twitter, the irony of that lol like months later too. I’m so glad I did though because this moved me. I have a younger sister by three years, I’m 23, and we have the same exact relationship and connection with each other. She lives down in Miami so I don’t get to see her often throughout the year, but when I do it’s like nothing had ever changed before she moved down there, it’s all the same just like how we’d grown up. We do nothing together but talk about nothing and everything, or vent about pointless and meaningful things. The love and communication still the same but the only difference is our distance. You are a very gifted writer and I am signing up now from having come across this, it was truly beautiful.
Steven, I’m super sorry for such a late response. The way you explained you and your sister’s relationship, I can tell you just get it. Thank you so much for reading and commenting, man! 🙂