The bond between siblings is unique ” you spend your childhood forced to spend most of your time together, competing for the attention of your parents. Fighting is inevitable as the balance between love and hate swings wildly back and forth. Still, after the bumps and bruises of adolescence pass, siblings can often come together as adults and realize that they can actually be friends! (They might even choose to sit next to each other in a car.)
For this Road Trip, I turned my attention to the special relationship between two siblings who have reconnected as adults. Joe, a classically-trained drummer, and Jasmin, a web designer and fitness model, were such a dynamic, fun duo ” it was hard to imagine that they weren’t always so close.
In this Road Trip, we tag along as Joe drops his sister off at LAX to visit their hometown of Philadelphia. Before she left, we had to give her one last taste of Cali, at In-N-Out. I couldn’t believe that they’d still never experienced œAnimal Style fries, or sliced chiles on top of a mustard-fried patty. Still tourists, after all!
Killing time before her flight, we watched planes take off and land at the airport. We kept trying to get closer and closer to the landing path until we were so close we could almost touch the belly of the giant planes as they passed overhead. We resisted the urge to try to hit the plane with rocks ” TSA would have had us hauled in, for sure!
The moment finally came for Joe and Jasmin to say their goodbyes, and at that point you could really tell she was the eldest. She pointed to her cheek, and Joe gave her a meek peck, followed by a sincere hug. The balance of love and hate had clearly tipped for these siblings ” it was all love in this moment.
This story was special to me, as it reminded me of my own sister (the age difference was almost exactly the same!) Like the siblings in this story, we didn’t grow close until we moved apart to attend university. We’ve come a long way since the œhow much can I annoy my sister games on family road trips as children, when I would spell out P-R-E-S-S on her orange seatbelt button as I clicked it open, causing our mother to chastise her for not wearing her seatbelt. As young adults, we started to mature as we learned how to live on our own, or with roommates, and we began to appreciate each other in a whole new light.
Like Jasmin and Joe, my sister and I are now squarely on the side of love.
