FV sr. and FV jr. (Sisters Forever)

For the A to Z challenge my sister Femke challenged me with the letter S for Sister. Although I’m two days late, because I don’t have an internet connection in my new house as yet, I’d still like to make up for it.

My big sister:

I was born in 1974 in my parents’ house, when my sister was already 7 years old. She had to spend this memorable Mother’s Day at the neighbors.

I read somewhere that older sisters like to treat their younger siblings as dolls. I don’t remember if that was the case. We were probably very cute together tough.

One of the first memories I have of my sister, or of life in general, was that she was doing all kinds of weird educational stuff, like visiting the museum and learning macramé. I wondered what all this fuss was about. I must have been around 4 years old.

Soon the jealousy started. I must have been terrible. I wasn’t jealous of her, but of all the things that she was allowed to do while I “always had to do what my parents told me”. While I had to go to bed when the sun disappeared behind the mountain, on holidays in Italy, she could stay up and go to the camping disco. While I had to stay home, she could go out with her friends. While I had to wear whatever was in my closet, she received an allowance for clothes. And so on. It never really struck me that it was only logical that an 8-year-old girl was not allowed to do the same stuff as a 15-year-old. It was just unbelievably ridiculous! It also never occurred to me that I probably had privileges she could be jealous of, like not doing the dishes, no homework etc. Like I said, I must have been terrible. The fact that both of us are slightly stubborn and flammable did not help. In spite of these sisterly issues, we always loved each other, we were each other’s only sister.

When I was around 18 years old I moved out to live on my own in the town center, very close to my sister. That’s when the party started. All of a sudden 7 years of age difference didn’t seem to matter that much. FV senior and FV junior shared drinks, parties, a lot of laughter and a healthy interest in the opposite sex. Eating soap, flirting with Johnny Lederhosen or Jeroen Darling, taking the bus to Tossa de Mar with partner in crime C(n)or, bringing red wine in a backpack or making trouble on October 3rd (Leidens Ontzet, the day our hometown was liberated from the Spanish), it was always fun. Well, almost always. We once stayed home with tears in our eyes after watching Schindler’s List in the movies.

When the best nephew ever Jesse was born, I went with Fem and her husband on holiday, back to where we spent our childhood holidays too. Soon after that I started travelling and moved to some faraway places and we don’t speak to each other as often as I would like to. Here we are together with her son Jesse and my baby Makeda, in 2006:

But Fem, even though we are far apart I always think about you and love you to pieces! I couldn’t have a better sister. Sometimes I wonder… Could you be? The most beautiful girl in the world? 😉