18 August 2008
Luke
Today was my twenty sixth birthday. When I was just twenty, Carrie died. It's been a while, such that I no longer think about her every single day. But on some days, like this one, I really miss her.
Right now Scott is on a flight to a new life in Japan. The town he's staying in sounds pretty cool; they even have a cherry blossom festival in the spring, which reminds me of Troy. And it's a weird transition - for almost nineteen years, he's lived at home, but now he's off into the world. And whenever he returns, he'll be all growed up. By the way, you can follow along on http://scott-japan.blogspot.com/
Nora starts high school this week. I'm happy - FINALLY one of my siblings is going to go to Loyola! Her english teacher is Mr. O'Loughlin, who threw chalk at me my freshman year. Nora of course is crazy active. She just biked 400 miles, and today tried out for volleyball. She has already met a good chunk of the student body and I can't wait to see what her high school is like. I see a lot of Carrie's quirky easy goingness in her. I'm sure it will be weird for her getting used to Scott leaving. It's now the third time an older sibling has left the house.
My dad soon will bring us into tri-continental status. He and Crazy Uncle Joe are moving part-time to ... Dubai? All I'm saying is that I want to see photos of the indoor ski resorts. My mom is ALSO starting high school. Woo hoo! She got a job at ETHS! So we'll add one more teacher to the fam. And it'll be just her and Nora in the house, which represents a downsize of almost 50%! Yowza.
Nicole and I spent my birthday making her classroom into a place hospitable to children. Making a classroom makes us feel much more settled I think than even an apartment. She was hopping around the halls feeling all happy while the rest of the teachers groaned about the amount of work to do. Then we ordered Indian and watched Six Feet Under. It was a good birthday.
I bet if Carrie were around she'd be doing some wild and crazy new thing. Maybe like Shira she'd be hopping state to state for the Obama campaign. (He was just a minor state senator when she died). Or, like Kieran, she might be bouncing around onto new and exciting theatrical journeys (Shout out - Kieran is an understudy in "My Name Is Rachel Corrie", playing in Chicago this September!) Perhaps she would have founded a non-profit to fund educations for African kids, played a cameo on NPR, and then moved to Africa. Although .. nah, you would have to be crazy to do that.
Of course in my own imaginary world, she's living in San Francisco, and on my birthday we go grab gelatto and chat about her adventures.