Left

A wise person once told me it's easier to leave than to be left. I didn't need a wise person to tell me that.

Since I'm the youngest of five children, I've watched my four older siblings move out in various ways. The first seemed to be the hardest. I was only 8, and was still playing with dolls. I have no memories of her living at home before the day she moved out. I was crying. I had no idea what was going on, or why my oldest sister was crying. All I remember was her repeating I have to do this, I have to do this. But what was she doing?

The next two were much less emotional. I wasn't as close to my brothers. They were big, strong, masculine men who had done wrestling and cross country, and I was just a weak little girl who had yet to reach high school. Sure, we had our ways of showing affection for each other. It mostly consisted of wrestling each other in the family room, but it was still there. I thought I'd die when my other sister left. But by then, I was so used to abandonment that it was the easiest release.

In the three years that my sister and I lived as the only children in the house, we grew very close. I still played the role of the annoying little sister, but she accepted that. As soon as I realized she didn't find me annoying anymore, I stopped being so annoying. She didn't mind me hanging out with her friends, and she became a friend of mine. I didn't know how I was going to live without her. The summer she spent working at camp didn't hurt. She was gone for two months, then back for two weeks. I learned how to get through the day without her random facts and infinite logic of why men are infinitely better than women. When she went off to college, I was able to keep myself busy with schoolwork, and never felt the pang of loneliness.

Now, it's a rarity that all seven of us end up in the same place at the same time. This is when it hurts the most. We're all together, and I get to sit back and watch them fly off one at a time, sometimes two a day, to their various destinations. And I am stuck at home for two more years, not knowing what it's like to do the leaving. But I will learn. I will most definitely learn.