the origin and genesis of something great

The beginning of an era. No one knows for sure when they start or end. They may just be states of mind, ways for us to label time periods and not what we make of them. No one person can point at a timeline and tell you exactly when the Age of Computers started or the Middle Ages ended, to the day. It is nearly impossible.

Yet, if you put someone in front of a calendar and ask them to find the exact date their life changed, that pivotal moment when the world complete itself, fractured itself, brightened, or darkened – just changed dramatically in one way – they usually can. A moment like that is crucial, something that ingrains itself in the mind.

March 14, 2009: The day my life fractured and shattered, and then pieced itself together into something brighter, better.

The moment in burned into my memory, and makes me tear up every time I imagine it. It runs in slow motion, allowing me to see every detail, feel the biting chill in the early spring air, sense the wind blowing my hair into a flurry, hear the crunch of the rocks as the tires of the car rolled forward toward me, feel the yank as my sister clutched my hand, jumping up and down next to me.

The car was white, that's all I noticed before my attention was ripped away. I was too preoccupied with the opening door, the car still moving forward. She bolted out of the car, Converse pounding on the ground, jacket and hair flying and flaring behind her.

I was frozen, unable to move as she rushed towards me. Time slowed as I stared at her, analyzing every small detail and aspect.

She was shorter than I anticipated – first thing I noticed. For a split second of indecision, I had trouble equating the huge personality I had gotten to know through IMs and text messages with such a small person, but then I saw her smile, bright and huge and mind-blowing to my impressionable psyche, and she seemed to grow, evolving into the person I had expected. Her personality overwhelmed mine, even then, making her seem larger than life.

Her skin had an olive tone, I noticed next, darker than mine, despite the fact that I lived in sunny Texas and she in usually-overcast Kentucky. Yet, it fit, making her teeth seem brighter and her personality deeper; she became a three-dimensional person, more than the flat screen of my computer and cell phone.

As she grew ever closer, me still unable to move, her eyes came into focus. They were familiar – achingly familiar – despite the fact that I had never seen them before. They were – are – the same exact shade as mine, but it went deeper than that – to the soul. She looked at everything the way I did, analyzed everything; saw the world in the same way I did, with the same critical eye and hunger for knowledge. She was looking at me now, in the same fashion I was her. I wondered if she saw me the way I saw her…

Perfect. She was impossibly perfect. She was so her, so completely the personality I had become best friends with, who I had fallen into sisterly love with. She was wonderful and faultless and impeccable and… she was here to see me.

We collided.

For half a second, the impact blinded me, a flash of light blooming across my vision. The breath was knocked out of me as she bodily tackled me, nearly knocking me over. The only thing keeping me upright was her arms around me, thin and strong. The hug was long, mind-blowingly tight, but it didn't seem close enough. This was our first contact, joyous and carefree, and just as intimate as two sisters greeting each other after a year apart.

In that moment, the world narrowed to the person squeezing the life out of me. My sister was gone; my house disappeared; her mother and grandmother now emerging from the parked car, inconsequential. I clutched her back, tighter still, relishing in the hug.

This is the person on the other side of the screen, I remember thinking to myself, almost-overwhelmed. This was the person I had managed to grow so close – practically attached – to in only ten months time, via the Internet. The person that knew me better than I knew myself. She understood my very essence, the things that made me tick; my fears, my wishes, my desires, the very things that made me me.

The world was a blur of color around me; the chill of the air was gone, replaced with something warmer. My world collapsed in that moment – a jolt going through me at the first contact –, rearranging itself around the person still hugging me, like a puzzle.

She leaned back, refusing to take her arms from around my person, and smiled at me. "Hi." She mumbled, staring at me with profound eyes.

"Hello." I beamed back, voice catching with a small chuckle on the second syllable.

The world finally came back into focus, brighter than ever before. My sister was standing back, waiting her turn to greet the new people. The dog was barking in the background, warning against the possible intruders. Her mother and grandmother were inching forward, watching us closely.

With one last, meaningful look, we stepped completely apart, eyes twinkling with happiness and delight. I felt complete, I realized as I introduced my sister to my best friend (making sure she knew that this person was not to be claimed, like she tried to do with my other friends. This friend was mine alone.).

The feeling of completeness was intense, suddenly there, throwing the rest of my life into sharp, unbalanced focus. The unevenness of the first fourteen years of my life nearly toppled me, the memories were so heavy. This one person, who lived in a different state, who was two years younger than me, unconnected from me in every way possible, yet still had the same exact eyes as me, was the missing piece I didn't know I needed.

I smiled at her again, excitement fluttering in my belly, hoping and wishing and praying that she felt the same.

The grin she sent back was so heartfelt, content, and loaded with happiness, bliss, glee, and delight, that I had to assume she did.

Best friends – no – sisters, partners in crime, hikari and yami, Ashley and Kiersten – Ashten – for life.

And nothing can change that.

03/05/2012