Samira shows up

My sister Samira and I have become pretty close over the last couple of years. She’s been out to Seattle a few times to visit me and I’ve been to Cleveland several times. We talk fairly regularly on the phone. We met up in Las Vegas twice and now she’s here in Rio for Carnaval. It wasn’t always like this. When we were growing up I was the mean older brother who would pick on her and she was the annoying little sister that would tell. There was some story about being thrown out of a window, but what happened depends on whose version you believe. But some things just seem to change over time. I’ve grown to like tomatoes too.

Samira doesn’t speak any Portuguese or Spanish so I knew it might be a little difficult when she showed up. I made sure our doorman knew to expect a little girl with a suitecase. “She’s my sister” I told him. Well turns out he almost didn’t make the connection. I don’t think we look too familiar right now. I’ve always been the dark one in the family, everyone else is relatively fair-skinned. And after 2 months in Latin America I’m now the dark dark one of the family. “You look black” she told me. I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.

Samira and I immediately started in on the family gossip. How her trip to introduce my parents to her boyfriend went, the latest stories about our nephews. I told her a few of my stories. “Yeah I know” she replied a couple of times “I read about that on your blog, everyone in the family is reading your blog.” Hmmm…maybe I should be a little more careful with what I write.

We’re actually not that similar personality wise. She’s idyllic and social, I’m bitter and jaded but usually hide it well. But maybe it’s just the similarity in age, or just middle child syndrome, for some reason we really get along well. At some point after I moved out to Seattle and left the rest of the family behind in Cleveland it was Samira I kept in touch with most, and some strange way, me moving 2000 miles away brought us together.

I've become kinda protective of Samira in the last couple of years. It's funny, you watch someone grow up and you see them making the same mistakes in life that you made earlier. And you try to help them so they can learn from your mistakes, and don't have to experience the same crap you did. But really, some lessons in life you can't pass on quite so easily. Everyone needs to stumble through it on their own, and learn from the experience. Samira is kind of like that...and I suppose the best thing you can do is be a good big brother and be around to see what happens.

But honestly she's a lot more mature than I was at her age. At 22 she's already giving me good advice about my own messed up dramas (usually involving women). And the thing about sisters is they can call bullshit on you like no one else. They've known you for their entire life, and you're just not going to fool them with the same line of crap you give to everyone else to justify your actions. And when she does call bullshit one me, I listen...at least I think I do.

I'm glad she came to visit. I know we're going to have a blast in Rio. We always have a blast when we're hanging out. Who would have thunk that just a few short years ago. Now I just hope my other sister Asma makes it to Buenos Aires. That would be fun.