sarahcentric

Ahhh…my dear, sweet, naive readers, I envy how sheltered your life must have been! To many of you, I’m sure this looks like nothing more than a sweet family photo of my sister Rebekah and I in matching dresses and bad haircuts. But there are a chosen few, (the regular readers of this blog who share my last name and struggles managing bi-racial hair), who see this photo for what it really is; a brief moment of peace in a never-ending domestic conflict to gain complete control of the Jackson family and rule the world forevermore.

Growing up in a house of three boys, three girls, two cats and one bathroom you learn one thing very quickly; family isn’t love, it’s war. In order to survive, each Jackson developed their own unique culture and employed battle strategies to fiercely protect it. The most infamous example was the bloody Battle for Control. The law of Jackson Kidland was that which ever child touched the landing of the basement stairs where the family TV was located was deemed “in control” of the after school cartoon programming. So every weekday afternoon of our Catholic school years, we fought for our right to watch “Ducktales” instead of “Voltron”; bolting off the bus like the driver shot a gun, hauling ass to that basement landing, as every kid on the bus cheered like the crowd at The Coliseum.

The Jackson Child Warriors were brave and glorious. We punched each other in the stomachs for stealing clothes, and hid Klondike bars from one another in the second freezer downstairs. We publicly slandered each other, scratching vicious phrases like, “Bekah is a Pooey-Turd” into bedroom doors. We misled each other with elaborate stories, driving my little brother Luke insane, insisting my sister and I were secretly Thundercats who visited Thundera regularly, “They won’t let us take you, Lukey!” But finally, in the interest of peace and against Peter Pan’s wise advice, we laid down our weapons and grew the hell up.

We have lived in relative peace for the last 15 years. But like the volatile Middle East or The Balkans, the Jackson children must work to maintain this precious calm. We each have a strict set of preconditions that must be respected before we agree to any social family activity. I hate to break with my man Obama here, but there is absolutely no way my brothers, sisters and I would have made it out alive if we hadn’t established some ground rules. I shared a room with Bekah from the first day I can remember until I left for college. Being two years apart and knowing each other way too well, we are a living, breathing example of preconditions at their best. Allow me to illustrate with a typical scenario…

10pm, Saturday night. Bekah and I are relaxing in our family home upstate after a day of summer celebration at a local winery.

Bekah: Are you worried we’ll die if we don’t get ice cream? (This message is sent via text. We are in our old bedrooms across the hall from each other.)

Sarah: (shouting) WELL GO GET IT THEN!!

Bekah: (shouting) COME IN HERE!!

Sarah: (shouting) YEAH RIGHT, YOU COME IN HERE!

It’s important to start the negotiations very hostile, right at the top. Bekah finally barges in. I win this round.

Bekah: Oh hi, Sarah. (Bekah uses her favorite little sister irritation technique, pinching me right between my shoulder blade and neck.)

Sarah: Get off me! Come on, can’t you just run to Shop-rite and get it?! I’ll give you money…

Bekah: You must be out of your mind if you think I’m going there by myself.

Sarah: Ughhh, I just took my eyes out and I don’t even have a bra on…I’ll go with you, but you have to run in.

Bekah: Pffff, no way. You’re going in, I don’t want to see anybody.

Sarah: Hello?! What about me?

Bekah: Whatever…

Sarah: Ughhh, let’s just forget it…

Bekah: No! There’s no chocolate in the house!

Sarah: Let’s call Chrissy and ask her what we should do…

Bekah: That’s a waste of time, Sarah. You know what she’ll say! We could have been there and back already!

Bekah wins this round…Chrissy is our oldest sister and she is The Boss. Think of her as the James Baker of the Jackson Children Conflict. She must periodically remind us what really matters most to all of us, and ice cream is always at the top of the list.

Sarah: Errr, fine! BUT we have to go right f—ing now, no changing into outfits and I’m still not putting a bra on…

Bekah: Agreed.

Sarah: And tomorrow morning, you HAVE to go to the cafe and buy graham cracker coffee for me before my feet hit the freaking ground! (I’m so obsessed with this coffee that it’s weird, and I’ve only ever found it in my hometown.)

Bekah: Don’t you want to just get brunch tomorrow?

Sarah: NO! I cannot leave this room without coffee tomorrow. Do we have a deal?

Bekah: Fine.

Sarah: Let’s do this! Ok, come here pick me up… (I pay Bekah back for her neck zapper with my favorite big sister irritation technique; locking my arms around her neck, insisting she pick me up like a baby.)

Bekah: Come onnnnnn!

Tense, exhausting negotiations like this occur every time we come together. But the violent grafitti condemning my sister to Pooey-Turdness is still barely visible under my father’s recent paint job. The dark days of the War at Home are not that far behind us. We fight now to maintain the peace.

Preconditional Pax in Terra.

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