Unquiet
Things

It struck me the other day, as I was going through my evening skincare routine, how little I know about my sisters’ daily lives. We’re all in our forties now, living far apart, each carving out our own paths. I’m the oldest of three, and there was a time when I could have told you exactly how each of my sisters started their day, what they ate for lunch, and how they unwound in the evening. Now, those details feel like distant memories, faded photographs I can’t quite bring into focus.

I have my routines, not strict by any means, but regular enough. They’re the scaffolding of my days, providing a sense of structure and comfort. But what about my sisters? One recently mentioned that she hasn’t been eating much lately, and her appetite has diminished due to stress or circumstances. The other, in a moment of self-deprecating humor, declared herself “feral,” claiming to have no routine at all. These snippets of information, casual as they were, left me feeling oddly bereft.

It’s a peculiar sort of longing, isn’t it? This desire to know the minutiae of their lives. I find myself wondering: Does my middle sister still order the blonde roast and the sous-vide egg bites, or has she succumbed to the allure of brown sugar shaken oat milk lattes? Does the youngest still stay up too late, reading Cynthia Harrod Eagles until the wee hours, or has adulting finally caught up with her sleep schedule? These may seem like trivial details, but to me, they feel like vital pieces of a puzzle I’m trying to complete.

Why does this matter so much to me? Perhaps it’s because routines are the invisible architecture of our lives. They’re the quiet rituals that shape our days and, by extension, who we are. To know someone’s routine is to hold a map to their inner world, to understand the contours of their current lives in a way that occasional phone calls and holiday gatherings can’t quite capture.

This desire to know and to share has led me to broadcast my own routines into the digital void. My blog posts and social media updates often feature snippets of my daily life – a photo of my morning reading, my latest sourdough attempt, the serum I swear by for inflamed skin. It’s a way of saying, “This is me, this is my life now.”

But here’s the irony that doesn’t escape me: my sisters rarely engage with these posts. They don’t read my blog, and their interactions with my social media are sporadic at best. I am not criticizing. It’s just a fact. I think I’m probably interesting to literally everyone but them. After all, I’m only the oldest sister they’ve known all their lives. And who am I to talk? I’m the one who won’t even pick up the phone to call them! (I hate phone calls, come on!) But seriously, if I did, I know they’d be happy to chat and we’d probably talk for hours. So I can’t be mad that they didn’t comment on my Facebook post, that’s unreasonable. There’s no one to blame here except me.

But it’s a strange paradox of modern life, isn’t it? We have more ways than ever to share our lives, yet true connection often feels more elusive. We mistake glimpses for insight, likes for understanding, and comments for conversation. I’m guilty of this too, scrolling through my sisters’ profiles, seeing one sister’s naughty dog, another sister’s pithy observations, and feeling like I’ve caught up with them–when in reality, I’ve only seen a carefully curated moment of their lives.

In the absence of shared physical space and daily interactions, these fragments of routine become almost talismanic. I cling to the few details I know, extrapolating entire days from a single data point. My middle sister shares in chat that she is coveting a particular picture frame she has seen at my house – does this mean she is coming out from under the exhaustion of the moving process and the decorating of her new house is commencing? The youngest updated her profile picture to a quirky illustration… is there some bigger meaning there, some inside joke I’m not privy to? Or is it simply a reflection of her mood that day, a small window into her current state of mind?

These small glimpses into their lives are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle scattered across a coffee table. I find myself picking up each piece, turning it over in my hands, squinting to see how it might fit into the larger picture of their daily lives. Sometimes, I suspect I’m trying to force connections where there are none, creating patterns from random brushstrokes. It’s a habit born from years of shared history and a desire to maintain that closeness we once had, even as our lives diverge and our daily routines become mysteries to one another.

My own routines have become a form of connection, even if it’s one-sided. As I apply my nightly Juicy Calendula Cream, I wonder if my sisters are doing something similar, if they’ve found products they love, or if skincare is just another chore in their day. When I sit down to dinner with Yvan, while watching Beryl eat from around the world or Dungeon Meshi,  I try to imagine my sisters’ evenings unfolding in their own spaces, but the pictures in my mind are blurry, incomplete. Are they ordering in, venturing out to a local spot, or just having a bowl of cereal? Do they have favorite shows they watch while eating? Are they reading a book? Or is their table free of distractions because they are trying to eat “mindfully?” (Ugh.) The distance between us seems to grow with each passing day, measured not in miles but in the accumulation of these small, unknown moments.

Perhaps this urge to know and share our daily rituals is a grown-up version of the secret languages and inside jokes we had as children. It’s a way of maintaining that sense of intimacy, of shared history, even as our lives diverge. Or maybe it’s simpler than that – maybe it’s just the human need to feel connected, to know that we’re not alone in our daily struggles and small victories.

As I reflect on this, I realize that my fixation on our routines stems from a deeper desire to feel connected to my sisters. It’s not really about knowing the minutiae of their days, but about finding ways to bridge the gap that time and distance have created between us. Perhaps instead of wondering about their routines, I should be creating new shared experiences, even from afar. But honestly, even as I write these words, I have no idea what that really means or how it might look.

A weekly video call? (We tried that during the pandemic, I don’t think we liked it.) Online watch-parties? A book club just for the three of us? Maybe a collaborative playlist where we each add songs that remind us of our childhood? Or a private Instagram account where we post one moment from our day, however mundane?

Yet, as soon as these ideas form, I feel a familiar dread creeping in—the dread of obligation, of carving out precious time from our already packed schedules. And I can’t help but wonder if my sisters would feel the same. There’s a certain irony in the fact that the one thing that hasn’t changed over the years is our shared, unspoken hope for a last-minute cancellation. That instant, exhilarating relief when plans fall through—it’s a feeling we all know well, a silent understanding that binds us even as it keeps us apart. How do we balance this desire for connection with our equally strong need for unstructured time? Is there a way to nurture our sisterhood without it feeling like another item on our to-do lists?

As I sit here, pondering the intricacies of our sisterhood, I’m left with just this. The truth is, our relationships have evolved. We’re no longer the little girls who played with Barbies or who fought with the neighbor kid because she didn’t play with Barbies the same way we did (she was a little fascist!). We’re not even the same people we were a dozen years ago, at Thanksgiving -a time when we’d all convene at our grandparent’s house and sleep together in the guest room together and drink too much and get rowdy but shush ourselves because we didn’t want to wake the grandparents! We’re women with our own lives, routines, and responsibilities. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s the way it was always going to be.

I don’t have a neat solution or a heartwarming conclusion to offer. Some days, I’m content with our sporadic texts and occasional calls. Other days, I long for a closeness we may never recapture. But I’m learning to find comfort in the small moments of connection we do share, fleeting as they may be.

When one sister sends me a meme that she can’t post in her feed because it’s too weird or niche, and we revel in our shared, bizarre, very grim sense of humor. When the other sister messages me about a vintage Betty Crocker cookbook we recall belonging to our grandmother, but we couldn’t remember what it was called…and she finally found it! For sale on Etsy for $16! This is what I’ve got of my sisters right now. And as small as it is, it fills me with a love too big to put into words. And I fucking treasure it.

So, I’ll continue to share my routines, to cast them out into the world. Not because I expect my sisters to read or respond, but because in doing so, I keep alive the possibility of connection. I maintain an open door, an invitation to step into my daily life whenever they choose. I’ll post about the oatmeal cookie creamer I use in my coffee, the miracle balm I tried when I found a weird rash on my butt a few weeks ago (it worked!), and my attempts at lucid dreaming, per this book. And when we meet in our dreams, I’ll tell them we are lucid dreaming and that we can do whatever we want! Which is, of course, summoning a unicorn and riding off to find 1993-era Glenn Danzig. This is a true story. I dreamed it last month.

Meanwhile, in the waking world, I’ll wonder about their days, share snippets of my own life into the digital void, and yes, feel that guilty relief when plans occasionally fall through.

And to my sisters, if by some chance you’re reading this: I miss knowing the rhythm of your days. I miss being a daily part of your lives. But more than that, I miss you. The door is always open, whether for a meme, a memory, or a middle-of-the-night lucid dream adventure. Until then, I’ll be here, living my life, sharing my routines, and always keeping a piece of my heart open for you.

Even if that piece is currently occupied by dream-Glenn Danzig.

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