I am Not the Simply Stated Blogger

Real Simple recently held a contest to determine a new Simply Stated Blogger for the month of October.

I, like a million other hopeful writers, entered the contest.

I was hopeful for the prize, but did not even make it to the final 10. Bitterness entered me as I read the 10 essays that were chosen for final voting. I wondered why mine was not.

I know that most people want to read a good story above great writing, but I value the poetic over the bizarre any day.

To all writers, I say, let's not just write. Let's discover. Let's take a closer look at life. Let's not be so concerned with extraordinary things that we lose the every day. 

The contest prompt was, Who is the person you are most surprised to be friends with?

The Simply Stated Blogger final essays were all well written, and mostly interesting. But the winner was the girl who wrote about her 95 year old ex-communist friend from college who helped her learn how to live life before she died at 101. Tuesdays with Morrie, anyone? I'm not really surprised, because when the prompt is to write something surprising, we write the most surprising story we have. Elisabeth Sharp McKetta did a fine job at answering the posed question, and since the original sting of losing has left my heart, I have found a place to be happy for the girl. But if I were writing a fictional answer to that prompt, this winning essay would be my first thought at a storyline. 

My entry was subtle. My story is not extraordinary. I wrote about my sister, and would like to share it because, despite the results of the contest, I think my essay is pretty dang great.

Alice

She was six when I was born, a little blue-eyed girl filled with wonder at the thought of having a sister. She already had a brother but let’s face it, no six-year old girl wants a brother. Brothers are strange and mean.

Upon discovering that I was not a boy, our brother pelted a mysteriously acquired beanbag at my sister. Poor girl, she did nothing worthy of violence. But that’s a brother for you.

At least she had an ally in me.

Though, with age I became jealous of my beautiful, popular older sister and ruined everything of hers that I could. I stole the heart from her Heart to Heart Bear; I cut the hair off her Barbie dolls. She, in turn, was not very fond of me.

I was twelve when she went to college. I helped carry boxes. I met her roommate. And once all her things were inside, my parents wanted a picture of us sisters. We hugged and smiled. That’s what sisters are supposed to do, right? But the girls in that photo were unsure.

I was fifteen when a man asked to marry her. It wasn’t fair. She was always doing something better than me. When I was starting kindergarten, she was starting junior high. When I was becoming a teenager, she was graduating high school. When I was learning to drive, she was getting married.

Two years ago, my sister turned thirty and her husband threw her an extravagant surprise party which I flew 600 miles to attend. We spent an awkward weekend together, two sister-strangers celebrating a milestone. I had several friends her age but the older-younger sister dynamic had weighed heavily on us, stalling the discovery of an unchosen friend in a girl much like me.