I think my specific age range is one of the few to have grown up both with and without technology. By that I mean -- I'm a digital native, but we didn't own a television or a printer until I was ten, and for most of my childhood, we only had one family device: the iPad. And as the younger sibling, I was truly barely trusted to touch the iPad with a six-foot pole. The way my parents and sister acted, you would think it was a priceless artifact worthy of a case in a museum, not one of fifteen devices we'd soon have lying scattered around our house. As a result, the only time I had personal contact with our family iPad was when my sister would let me sit next to her under a pile of blankets and watch her play with it. So I grew up watching the Alisha Marie and Bethany Mota makeup videos she loved, resting my head on her shoulder as she got stumbled through Papa's Taco Mia and Subway Surfers, and trying to complete levels of Flow Free in my head before she could. The joke in my house was always that I could be furious with her -- as in, resolving to never speak to her again -- but I'd put that aside if she pulled out the iPad and a fuzzy blanket. Whenever I hear the lyric "sharing beds like little kids" from Lorde's Ribs, I think of the two of us completely drowned out by the sheer size of our parent's King-sized mattress we were curled up in the corner of. And it's the youngest I think I'll ever feel.
In fact, there was one time when we began fighting mid-YouTube video, and in a fit of rage, my sister slammed the iPad shut and left the room. "It's fine! I'll just watch without you!" I yelled after her. I opened the iPad up and typed in Really Don't Care by Demi Lovato -- for some reason, I distinctly remember that it was that song -- and clicked play gleefully, excited that I finally had full control over what I watched. Before the chorus even hit I knew everything was wrong, the magic gone. The choice was overwhelming (something that remains true to my character today, too), and even though we usually sat in complete silence, it was infinitely quieter with her gone.
The funny part about this story, now that I'm retelling it, is that it's been years since I've watched a YouTube video with my sister (let alone done so while sharing a blanket in our parents' bed). I guess I logically know that we simply traded in that tradition for our current one of watching reality television together in complete darkness and talking the entire time through, but I also know that the last time we truly shared a brain was before we had our own devices to peer at the world through.
I wrote this short story in sophomore year about two sisters who subtly swapped personalities over the years until nobody could remember that once, they were completely different. It was loosely based on me and her -- during our iPad days, I was the carefree, extroverted one, and she was the one who let me be that. I was the little girl who wanted to get a tattoo and attend Coachella, the one who was so overly trusting she once told everyone her email password, the one who could make friends with anyone. My sister was responsible, mature, and intellectual. She could spell succussatory on national television and refused to shed a tear in public. She wore the same jeans and hoodie every day for a year.
These days, I see a second coming of childhood in my sister -- she takes random trips to Raising Cane's at midnight (despite being vegan) and screams with ecstasy whenever she sees the beach. She befriends baristas and uses favors as transportation because she still doesn't have a license. She buys miniskirts my mother doesn't approve of and drives to New York overnight because she feels like it. Maybe it's egotistical of me to think her transformation is about me, but part of me wonders if my moving away gave her the space to let go and be whoever she wanted, without regard for how strong of guardrails she was providing for me.
In contrast, I'm going home next week for Thanksgiving, and I'm so excited I've even considered pulling up Hozier's latest album on the family iPad that's been dead for five years. I've heard a lot of talk about how older siblings are burdened with academic achievement pressure and doomed to a life of being misunderstood, but I think I've inherited the Golden Younger Daughter Complex: the archetype where the girl is sensitive and constantly talking about her feelings, spoiled and pampered endlessly, naive enough to be hopeful but educated enough to be a pessimist, and yet somehow constantly pushed out of the nest too soon. Rushing to grow up to be on par with everyone else, then regretting it the second it's done.
It's a quiet luxury to be in-state, I think. My roommate shrunk her tote bag in the laundry and she laughed it off, saying "if I hand this to my mother, she'll fix it". I laughed, and told her that's my strategy for all my problems, not just laundry-related ones. I think maybe I'm the kind of person who will always be a little bit unhappy, both with my condition and my personhood. And it took leaving to realize that the only people who can make it all not matter at all are my parents.
Today I found myself thinking about the Godiva store that used to be at the mall. Every year, we would take a trip to Godiva to buy chocolates for all our teachers and colleagues, and walk out with armfuls of chocolate for ourselves, too. Some years we would compound our chocolate hordes by getting the giant pack of Ferrero Rocher truffles and Belgian biscuits from Costco, too. The Godiva store closed down mid-pandemic and my sister turned vegan, so I guess I'll be spending every holiday season for the rest of my life without sneaking truffles from the kitchen between meals. It's a small tradition, one we didn't even consider a tradition until it disappeared. And still, it breaks my heart that my kids won't have the taste of dark chocolate almond bark imprinted in their bodies.
It's funny, because my sister and I often complain that our parents never took any effort to make holiday seasons feel festive. We rarely put up decorations, almost never had family over or large gatherings with friends, and honestly spent most of our school breaks doing competitive math in our rooms. But nostalgia works in weird ways -- I play a game of Papa's Pizzeria in my dorm years later and suddenly my brain rewrites history. All the years I was desperate to escape, all the times I spent Christmas day crying over the Stewart's Theorem? It all now feels like Gilmore Girls and Glee, chocolate and cinnamon, comfort and peace. Ethically, I'm morally opposed to Thanksgiving, a holiday that dances on the graves of Native Americans who were decimated by their own kindness, but right now, all I want is comfort food and my mother's conversation.
But neither of those things are mine to have anymore.
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