Chasing Caroline

I'm the eldest of three kids, five and a half years older than my brother, twelve years older than my sister.  The years between us yielded specific relationships when we were younger.  I thought my brother was annoying for the first 10 or so years of his life, but I was also fiercely protective of him, as big sisters tend to be. We pestered each other mercilessly and somewhere in his early teen years, in my first years away at college, we realized we genuinely liked each other's company.

My relationship with Caroline was very different.  She was the baby and idolized each of us, my brother and I, as the babies tend to do. And since I was so much older, babysat her so often, sang her to sleep so frequently, there was a maternal element there, too. I worried about her more than I worried about my brother, probably spoiled her more.  Little girls are easier for a teenage/college/young 20s woman to spoil. ice cream, painting nails, going shopping...infinitely easier than spoiling that smelly, football-playing brother.  But I do remember taking Rob out for many orders of Denny's seasoned fries, so I did my best by him, I think.

I don't know what it's like to be a younger sibling. I don't know what it's like to be the second or third kid to embark upon something.  The first kid who goes to college gets the benefit/anxiety of parental ignorance.  The second and third kid are beholden to wiser parents, for good or ill. As we've grown up, built lives, the "first" of things has shifted, as it should.  Age doesn't determine "first" anymore.  My brother beat me to the altar and I'm lucky to be in a family that doesn't see that as a failure on my part, or an expectation that I'll be next. Adult lives fall into their own frame, influenced by choices made, people met, a wing and a prayer.

And just as the timeline of our lives has begun to take shape without strict adherence to who was born first, so has my perspective on who looks up to whom. I imagine Caroline and Rob will always look up to me in some way, and I will always want to guide them, offer them advice, open my life to them in a way that lets them see what errors I could have avoided, what regrets I might have that they could be careful to not repeat. This guiding sentiment is more acute in my relationship with Caroline. I know what it's like to be a young woman in college far from home.  I know nothing of what it's like to be a spouse, own a home, etc.

Last summer Caroline and I ran the Afton Trail Run 25K together, where we took the picture above. Caroline smoked me by 17 minutes. She finished in 3 hours, 38 minutes, and I clocked in at 3 hours, 55 minutes. It's a brutal course, the hilliest available in this neck of the woods, with steep climbs making running a joke.  Caroline wasn't able to join me this year due to an ankle injury and her pending trip back to Texas for summer school. But I chased her the whole way.  I chased her 3 hours, 38 minutes. And when I was scrambling up a particularly rough incline, tempted to stop, I'd ask myself, "did Caroline stop here last year?"

I finished in 3 hours, 45 minutes this year, still seven minutes shy of Caroline's time, but ten minutes faster than what I accomplished last year, which is no small feat. And as I chased Caroline, or the thought of her, through the woods, I thought of how often she must have chased me, how often she may feel the inclination to still do so. I don't make it clear enough, frequently enough, how much I look up to both of my siblings, how much I respect Rob's humor, intelligence, and his loyal devotion to my sister-in-law. He's a good man, and a wonderful example to Caroline and I of what a good man looks like, should we find ourselves questioning what "good" might encompass. And I'm awed by Caroline's ability to push herself physically and mentally, to get excited about the beauty God placed in the world. I try to mold a bit more of my world into a world Caroline would like to inhabit. Because that's the world I want for myself, too, and her inspirations make me remember to get inspired myself.

I do not know what it is about me that my siblings might look up to, aside from the generic older sibling first-to-do-a-lot stuff.  I don't mean that to be self-deprecating, only that I don't understand what it might be that a younger sibling most latches onto, most strives toward. And I imagine their perspective has changed greatly over the last 27 and 20 years, respectively. I imagine they still chase me, still allow certain decisions to be influenced by things I've done, said, experienced. But they should know that I chase them, too. I watch and marvel at them, at their courage and their curiosities.  And just as I'll continue to chase Caroline in the woods at Afton, I hope we'll all continue to chase the best in each other.  Aside from love and loyalty, blessings that feel so much like luck sometimes, I think that chase, that recognition that those you love are capable of great things and that perhaps you should be, too...I think that's the most beautiful thing.