Happy Birthday Lisa!

Growing up, Lisa and I had a very tumultuous relationship. We pretty much fought all the time and when we weren’t fighting, we were ganging up to torture poor Stacey. Good. Times.

If someone would have told me at 12 that I’d one day write a book with my big sister, I would have probably started crying. I was very sensitive. Plus, how could I ever write a book with someone who hit me over the head with a cordless phone? Who hit me so hard the phone broke. Who insisted I help her bury the evidence along the railroad tracks near our home. Who demanded I not crack a smile whenever our mom paged said phone and asked, “How could a phone just disappear?”

But today is Lisa’s birthday. And while there’s no way I can top the OTHER Roeckers' birthday post to her last year, I’m going to try to honor our birthday girl with a little trip down memory lane…

July 12, 1991: I began writing my diary under the pseudonym, “The Kerring” after Lisa read an entry aloud as my crush Brian listened on. If only I had been cunning enough to use the alias all along. #hindsightsabitch

February 22, 1992: Dear Diary, Yesterday was my birthday and Lisa wouldn’t let me borrow her clogs. I borrowed Emily’s leather Keds instead. She’s so mean! Love, The Kerring

September 13, 1993: Poem written in diary after an entry about a particularly nasty fight with Lisa:

Look in my eyes, see who I am
I am not you, I am me

I think different
You always yell, you always scream

Just try to think how I feel
Your screams put a bruise on my heart

I try to talk, but listen you won’t
The words that mean so much
Were never said.
My heart just waited, no more will I wait.

March 5, 1995: I wrote a story called “The Sister” for English class creative writing. It involves a fire and a sister, who *spoiler alert* dies. Teacher’s comment: My God, Laura, is this real? Yep. There was something wrong with me. I still must have been pissed off about those clogs.

But somewhere along the way, “The Kerring” signed her name for the last time, the angry poems petered out and the writing took on a new, slightly less alarming focus. Instead of fighting over the phone or brown, suede clogs, we’re fighting over including the word DILF in our manuscript or laughing till we cry over old pictures with triangle shaped hair, hand-me-down clothes and jacked up teeth.

Happy Birthday, Lisa. I’m not exactly sure when it happened, but I’m so thankful to have best friends in both my sisters. I wouldn't have it any other way.