My sister and me: Oil and water but love runs deep in the veins

My sister and I are of two different generations or so I believe.  Some generation commentators may lump us in the same generation but we could not be any more different than what we already are.

You know that poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” In terms of my sister it is more like, “How do I love thee, let me count the way we are different.”  Despite our huge differences there is still grand love. Now that is love, when you still care for someone and still would do anything to protect them despite being so different that if you were not related you wonder if you two would have ever met. There is no way my sister and I would ever be part of the same social circles. We are just two very different women.

She was born in the Bronx, New York but raised in Puerto Rico. I am the opposite. I am what many refer to as a Nuyorican -a whole other mindset, while she is Puerto Rican.  I think New York is the center of the universe. She finds it cold.  I may start a sentence in English and she finishes it in Spanish.

I love film noir movies while she loves horror films. I believe those don’t count as “films”.   I love to read books, she loves the internet. I love to travel, she thinks a flight more than hours is too much.   I prayed for a son, she wanted a daughter (luckily we each got what we wanted). I like alternative music, she likes pop music. I bite my nails, she gets manicures. She is pentecostal and I am not; I have a mixed religion blended family. I prefer clubbing (not that I do that much anymore) and she prefers going to the movies.   I lived on my own essentially from the age of 14, she lived at home till she got married.    I now drink coffee, she does not go near it. I enjoy a cocktail or two, she drinks sprite occasionally. We are two very different people.

We do have some similarities.   We both love candy. We both love shoes.  We both love shopping.  We both work for the public good-she is a teacher and I work in social justice/health disparities advocacy.  We both love broccoli. Go figure, on that last one. But the most important of all is that we both loved mom ad each other.  That runs deep.

It is amazing that two people can love each other despite so many differences. I suppose that is what makes life worth living and interesting.

May we find love in all the different spaces there are out there.