On Sunday afternoons when I was growing up, my siblings and I were left to our own devices. It was because my parents really needed to take a nap after we all went to church. I used to feel so bad for them seeing how listening to a sermon could be so terribly exhausting, but now that I think about it, taking three over-energetic children who wanted to know everything about Jesus and the rest of the crew was probably the tiring part.
My brother was more inclined to play computer games while my sister Grace and I made up adventures to embark on. Our wood first floor made for an excellent mock ice skating rink; we would pull on our fuzzy socks and ‘skate’ our way around. Other days, we would collect every cushion and all the sheets in the house to make fortresses because we were obviously on an abandoned island and needed to defend ourselves in case pirates came. Most often, we were both princesses- not because we were blooming feminists who didn’t feel the need for a prince and/ or a knight in shining armor, but because we could never come to a consensus as to who had to play the male. Also because there was only one Ken doll between the two of us, and it wasn’t fair if only one of us had a significant other.
Regardless of what storyline we were following, my sister and I somehow always ended playing in our minivan. On Sundays, it was always parked in our garage, where it was cool and you could faintly hear the rustle of the trees outside through the panels of the garage door.
There was more than enough space for me and my sister to crawl in and continue weaving whatever tale we had in development. One of our favorites was when we were stuck in a deep, dark cave. Grace and I would pretend we were rock climbers and scratch our way from the bottom of the trunk and over the backseat to the freedom on the middle row. Where my mother sees the damage of little children fingers, I see the spirit of adventure of me and my sister.
***
Although I got my driver’s license sophomore year of high school, I wasn’t allowed to drive the minivan to school by myself until senior year. I never quite realized how massive the minivan was until I had to park it- I felt like I needed one of those airport runway signalers to help me back in to a spot. To avoid the parking complications that came with driving a larger vehicle, my sister and I would have to leave the house for the school parking lot by 6:15 A.M.
I was prone to hitting the snooze button one too many times and in addition, felt obligated to spend a ridiculous amount of time fixing my hair and figuring out an outfit so I was always struggling to leave the house on time. My mom would thrust whatever breakfast she had made into Grace’s hands so she would sit in the passenger seat, lean over the center console, and feed me.
Either my driving was as erratic as Grace claimed or she was as terribly uncoordinated and bad at feeding people as I believed, but food would always drop onto my lap and I would have the walk around school for the rest of the day with curious stains over my crotch.
When my sister finished feeding me, the minivan turned from somewhere we invented stories to where we told stories- the ones about what was currently going on in our lives. I would tell Grace about the million papers I had to write. And everything she didn’t need to hear about the trials and tribulations about having a boyfriend. She would get to hear about how I was potentially not going to pass chemistry and that if she told our parents, I would sneak into her room in the dead of the night and shave off her eyebrows. And which one of my friends was being especially annoying. Grace would tell me about how she needed more time to study for her anatomy tests. Which she needed to ace or she could never become a pediatrician. Or about the next community service project she wanted to take on. The fifteen minute drive to school would be our safe place, where it was just Grace and me in our minivan. Our “car chats” were something I could depend on, something constant.
***
When Grace texted me to let me know she was accepted to the University of Rochester for their pre-med program, I was trudging through the slushy snow/snowy slush U.S. News neglects to tell prospective students about in Carnegie Mellon’s college profile.
“THIS IS THE COOLEST THING EVER. MY SISTER IS GOING TO BE A DOCTOR” I texted in all caps so she knew I was ecstatic for her.
“I’M GOING TO ONE OF THE COLDEST PLACES IN THE U.S. WHAT AM I DOING TO MYSELF” she texted back.
“I KNOW. BUT YOU’RE GOING TO BE A DOCTOR. I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU.”
“YOU, ME, MINIVAN, ALMOST THERE. I LOVE YOU. MISS YOU.”
It’s almost like she could sense it- that I had, like, 3 papers to write and that my boyfriend was still, after all these years, being stupid, that I probably wasn’t going to pass one of my classes and that my friends were being annoying. And that of all the places I wanted to be, I wished I was sitting in the minivan having a car chat with her.
Next semester, I’m studying abroad in Florence. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to miss Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon. Its cliché but you truly don’t know what you have until it’s gone.
So, this finals season, you can hate studying for tests, but appreciate the friends that study with you. You can dislike the cold and the snow, but when else can you make snowmen or take pretty pictures to Instagram? Yeah, Culin-Art food sucks, but the employees are the nicest people you’ll ever meet. And instead of saying that Pittsburgh sucks, go outside and explore till you find something that doesn’t suck…and then enjoy with the people you care about. Because before you know it, your minivan (and okay, fine, your sister) will be a couple thousand miles away and you’ll be waiting alone at the corner of Morewood and Forbes for a Port Authority bus- which I still have yet to find the silver lining to but I’ll get there.