When I first met my future sister-in-law nearly twenty years ago, I was fretful. She was a fashion plate sorority girl; I was a bookworm. How would we ever get along? I give her credit for being committed to forging a friendship with me. She’d never had a sister (neither had I), and she wasn’t going to let our differences stand in her way. Gradually, we became friends. We weren’t confidantes, but we enjoyed one another and looked forward to seeing each other once or twice a year at visits to each other’s homes on opposite coasts.
I’m not sure that’s the case for either of us any more. Money and children, and the combination thereof, have changed things. To sketch the situation, my sister-in-law (I’ll call her Beth) drives a Lexus SUV and bought a wedding gown that cost more than my entire ceremony. She tore down her perfectly charming and solid house in order to build a six-bedroom, five-bathroom mansion. Her kids have more toys than could comfortably fit in our two-bedroom house and their birthdays are celebrated with dozens of kids and hired entertainment.
Sanctimonious though I might sound, our house is far from perfect. It’s happy but jumbled. Most annoying to me are the unfinished projects at every turn: paint samples cover the entryway walls; the bare, the dangling light bulb installed by an electrician in an emergency last spring is still there; and the kitchen sink has developed a leak that is rotting the cupboard below. More quaintly, my son entertains himself for long stretches with the bag of $3 Power Rangers we got at the consignment store, and my daughter is happiest with a fresh bag of library books. Though I hesitate to admit it, my newest clothes are from Target, the car is a hand-me-down from my very generous mom, and I don’t have a cell phone because it’s that or a gym membership, which is a terribly easy choice.
So how do these discrepancies make me feel about Beth? Confused. On one hand, I feel that I have plenty and she has a ridiculous, embarrassing amount of riches. I know that many people, some of my good friends included, live with less than my family does. I have no desire for a larger house or a bigger, newer car. And yet, I’m not without my wants. I’d take a spending spree at some funky little clothing boutique.
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