Here Comes the Divide

Today is the last day that all the Merrills live in the same house. Tomorrow, we drive to Searcy and prepare to give my sister away on Monday. And I don't feel the least bit ready.

The reality of it comes and goes. It came at me full force this morning around 5:30 am, as I lay in my bed and suddenly felt like I couldn't breathe.

What happened? Somewhere along the line, I feel like I've failed in some required twin individuation process. Sure, we have our differences--anyone who knows us knows how we hate being thought of as duplicates. Still, however unintentionally, our lives have basically followed the same trajectory until now. We went to the same college. We joined the same club. We sang in the same chorus. We eventually ended up with the same major. We lived in the same apartment for two years.

Of course, our paths started subtly diverging three years ago, when she went and fell in love and entered a world I know nothing about. I forestalled the inevitable conclusion for as long as I could, mentally willing her not to come back with an engagement ring every time she went out with her boyfriend.

But obviously, things change. They have to. And now I feel like the individuation is being forced on me in the most dramatic means possible: her last name is changing, and I'm moving to Africa. I don't know if this ripping-off-the-Band-aid separation is better than other ways of doing it or worse, and really, it's pointless to wonder, but I can't help myself. I feel foolish and melodramatic for bemoaning my loss when she'll still be just a phone call and eight time zones away, but it's a real loss and I wouldn't be doing it justice if I didn't mourn it, just for a little while.

Jennifer woke up when she heard me crying in bed this morning, and I pathetically asked her to come join me. So she did, and I cried, and then she cried, and we both got tired from crying. And then either she or I said something ridiculous, which made the other one laugh, and then we both kept on saying ridiculous things and dying with laughter. And after a couple of hours we decided we were hungry and went to Chick-Fil-A and got chicken biscuits.

And that's how things usually go with us. I'm just trying to see who's going to help me pick up my pieces when she's across the world from me, and not across the room.