My sister and I are 18 months apart. We were Irish twins, doing everything together. I rushed to keep up with her in everything she did, and I also like to think that I held her back a little bit. It’s all about compromise people.
Now, the dark underbelly of having kids so close in age is that it’s exhausting (or so my mother keeps saying). Their childhood becomes a series of COPY and PASTE. “Ooh, that outfit is cute, I’ll just buy 2. Ooh, that toy looks fun, they can just share it. Did I put both kids in the car….eh, probably.”
So Lauren and I shared a lot of things. Now
I don’t know if you know this, but Lauren and I are quite different.
This made sharing hard. For example, we would play Barbies and my doll would fly and do all kinds of magical things, at which point Lauren would sit me in a time out to properly explain the laws of gravity and theories of physics and how those principals made my playtime ludicrous. Lauren was very advanced for seven.
And then it happened.
It was the time of Christmas in those days of yore and my mother bought us the greatest thing that any girl-child of the 90’s could have even dreamed about! A Barbie dream house! It was four stories of deluxe, polished Mattel cardboard, complete with beautifully decorated sticker walls, ornate plastic columns and a damn elevator on a string that actually elevated!
It was amazing. We were the envy of the neighborhood. We had to REALLY start locking our doors at night after such luxury came into our lives.
But alas, this home for four was not to be shared. My sister, being the cosmopolitan woman that she is, decided that her perfect Barbie family needed the whole space and it would probably be best if I found a new place to live…
…enter the Barbie dream camper.
It was decided unanimously at a meeting that I was not invited to that this would be my new home. Lauren raised the proposal, Lauren seconded it. The amendment was ratified and all Lauren’s said “agreed”.
And Tracy was thrown out into the street to make her new home in the pink trailer…parked across the room because half of the value of Lauren’s dream complex was in the curb appeal and my mobile home was apparently really bringing down the property values in the neighborhood.
This is all true.
Can we just take a moment to see the foreshadowing of my gypsy life. My damn play time couldn’t even commit to one place! My Barbie was afraid of commitments and liked to keep her options open. Ken got on her nerves and she liked alone time, which made the wheels on the house handy. Oh geez, what is my life?
Now don’t think that Lauren was unreasonable. When the camper became cramped she gave me a shoebox to build on an addition. It looked beautiful with the couch on the lawn and the truck up on blocks.
As you can see, I have always lived a very glamorous life. Well played little-Combs, way to aim for the middle.
When asked for comment, Lauren had this to say:
for a rainy day 
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