Sometimes I feel like the guy from Fiddler on the Roof...

What in the world could I mean?

Remember that dad from Fiddler on the Roof? Tevye, that Jewish man with five daughters who all get married in rapid succession to men he doesn't really know or approve of. Yeah... I'm him. But don't take the metaphor too far. Not jewish, certainly not a father of five... Also, not really many marriages, and this is important, the disapproval thing doesn't apply to me either. So in all honesty it's a pretty crappy allusion on my part. Shut up.

I have four older brothers. Brother no.1 met his wife in high school, when I was 5. I don't remember not knowing her-- she's always been around and is definitely like a sister to me. They got married in 2004 and have had two daughters since then (and there's another one on the way.) Brother no.3 brought a girl home to meet us roughly three years ago and she's been hanging around ever since. They go pretty nicely together if you ask me. Which you should, cause I'm the sister. Then there was a drought of new non-Stephenson girls in our lives... My mom started fretting about when her remaining sons were going to find nice girlfriends. She tried match-making-- that didn't work out too well. But then, this year, within a span of a few months, Brother no.2 and 4 both have special lady friends.... Also, in both cases, I'm pretty sure I was inadvertently the first person to know about them.

It's odd watching your older siblings grow up and press onward into their adults lives, only to realize that, most likely, you're headed in the same general direction. I'm not announcing that I'm dating anyone, not even close.. hah.. But the general shape of our lives is shifting in a significant way. It changed when Andrew got married, and  took a much bigger turn when he had kids. We went into baby mode. All the old toys came back out and our home was filled with barbies and princess clothes and all things pink. It was a shock to the system, but we had a clear, new, (usually)predictable direction in which to run. Now, I'm not really sure where we're going.

Being an adult seems so much foggier. You decide everything for yourself, except all the things you can't control... which tend to be vast. The future is so much more unsure when your every move isn't dictated by the fact that you're a student, a child, a sibling, too young to make big decisions or do anything on your own. In reflection, being a kid seems easier because you are constantly told your place. Sure, you fight it, but ultimately you know what you are and aren't supposed to do. They do that to you for almost 18 years--- teach you your place. And then suddenly you realize that the thing you've been fighting for is here; independence. You're an adult and you get to make your own decisions. But the catch is that the past 18 years haven't been preparing you for that...  Not really, not in it's entirety. I mean, my parents and family and people in my church and my teachers have taught me life skills that will definitely be valuable when I graduate to real-life-hood, there is no question about that. I've been tested by increasingly frequent glimpses of adult-sized issues and challenges and I'm being molded by my creator-- I'm sure he's preparing me for whatever is out there... But my new role hasn't been clearly defined by 18 years of practice, and I'm not quite sure I feel ready for it.

What's my place in this shifting reality? I'm scared about my future, about the future of my brothers. It's hard to let God control my life when it's still me making the decisions and I don't know what direction He want's me to go. What's my new role when our lives make cataclysmic jumps into the unknown? When Andrew introduced us to Amy, I'm pretty sure I broke a twig off a tree and started hitting her with it. (Or so the story goes....It's possible that Amy has changed that story over time... But maybe not.) That was my reaction to a new girl in our family. Apparently, I didn't care for it. I didn't have quite as abrasive a reaction to Kristin when Matt introduced us... I don't actually remember-- I'm sure I wasn't at all barbaric. But I don't know, now I'm starting to feel deep down that everything is changing. We aren't kids anymore, and that seems quite obvious, but it has taken me a while to fully grasp that idea. We have responsibilities and challenges and full-scale problems. We don't wake up on Saturday mornings and dump out all the Legos and stay there till mom makes us get up and do our chores. There are more girls in our family than boys. I had never even thought that was plausible.. It was a 5:2 ratio all my life, and now with May baby coming, the girls will have a one-up on the boys. I could potentially have four sisters later in my life. FOUR. Actually, I could have more than that. What if I just marry some guy with like 5 sisters? That's 9.Utterly inconceivable. I don't know how to have sisters, at least not in the way other people do. Amy and I kept tried to have a girl movie night, and we first ended up getting the Kite Runner. The next time, we got Beautiful Mind. And then I'm pretty sure we watched The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. All really, really good movies. Chick flicks? Absolutely not. I'm not saying all sisters must love girly movies, I'm just saying that some do. And if my potential sisters do... I will have to somehow accommodate that. What if I get a 'sister' whose sense of humor is cryptic to me? Or can't carry on a conversation with the Stephenson mob? We're a tough bunch to keep up with, or so I've been told.

I'm not sure anymore what I'm getting at, other than the fact that life is scary. I don't think anyone could deny that.. It's hard to know what direction to take. It's hard to know who you're supposed to be or what you're supposed to do, especially when stuff doesn't play out the way you thought it might. I think that's true in the Fiddler on the Roof, too. His life took drastic shifts in unexpected ways and he didn't know how to respond. It's tough when you are plunged into a new chapter of life and forgot the instruction manual, ya know? Tough choices come and we don't know which way we're supposed to turn. Thank goodness I'm not in charge of writing my own story..

Have you heard the song Faust, Midas and Myself? No? Some lyrics just popped into my head.

You got one life, one life

One life left to lead 

What direction? Death or action?
Life begins at the intersection