Sister

I see her everywhere and nowhere. I will never get out of my head the yearning that always feels like it's on the verge of killing me. All I want is the chance to say "I'm sorry I abandoned you. I was once there when you faced that worthless, conniving, abusive asshole trying to turn you out and then I stopped being there when you needed me the most." The feelings of my other family members have always been important to me, but for some reason your feelings dropped off the face of the planet and were never heard of again. I was indignant about the rift torn between you and the rest of the family, and I had chosen a side. I remember feeling so disappointed in you, and yet now it's pretty much inconsequential. The shittiest part is that I almost feel like I'm doing the same thing with a lot of the people whom I feel like I can't be around, like my mother and brother. It's always some kind of bad news, always something to add to the sky high load of emotional baggage on my shoulders, whenever I come into contact with folks like them. What is the balance between looking after my own emotional well being while at the same time supporting family members who are all kinds of fucked up themselves? Why do I feel like I need to support them anyways? Is it because I have the innate need to see things put right in the lives of the people in my life? Or is it society saying that you must be involved with your family no matter how detrimental it might be to yourself?

I'm caught up in a dilemma that I don't know how to solve. I very much regret not being there for her before she died, and yet there are two disciplines I feel I must be mindful around. That of being aware of decisions I may regret versus attending more to my own emotional health (which therefore means allowing myself to learn to be ok with cutting out toxic people in my life even when I love them). Cutting out those who I'm supposed to be close with hurts beyond imagining, but at the same time the pain caused by keeping them around is just as comparable.

Whatever I do, I'd better decide soon because I have others on the verge of dying, including my mom. Please, just let me go somewhere and bawl my eyes out until all the moisture is purged from my body and there's nothing left to feel anymore..........oh wait, I already get numb without going to such lengths. Goddamn if I let myself break down in front of other people.

Say hello to heaven, sis. No matter what you did in this lifetime, you still cared, and you'll always be remembered and loved.

My sister seems to have a magnetic field around her. Everyone loves her. Everyone wants to talk to her. And everyone wants to compare her to me.

Or maybe I just compare us myself. It's hard to avoid when a person I'm talking to suddenly turns to her and doesn't speak to me again.

She's thinner. She's prettier. She's more outgoing. She can stop a person with just a look when she wants to.

I want to say I have the better personality, but I must be wrong.

And all I can think of is screaming in a hallway, gasping for air as she kicked the shit out of me, dodging whatever she chose to throw. I think of barricading myself in a room, hoping like hell she wouldn't push through. I remember a 103 degree fever, being completely oblivious to the world around me as I sat in the living room, unable to move, and she was happy because it meant she could use the computer longer.

I remember spending my 17th birthday in the hospital with her, because she was on more drugs and alcohol than I can name, and she got into a car accident.

I remember being confronted in the hallway by a teacher, because they saw in the newspaper that she was in jail, and they didn't want me to be like her.

I want to be my own person.

I want to stop wishing I could give myself an eating disorder to be thinner than her.

I want to stop worrying that my friends will meet her and stop talking to me.

I want to stop feeling like I'm constantly struggling to be something better than she is.

What if I don't want a sister?

I feel like she's stealing him.

Especially when she wraps her arms around his waist and says "Mine."

That makes me want to scream, "He was mine first! He was the only thing keeping me sane while being carted back and forth between homes! Don't take him away!"

But it's too late.

I can see he loves her.

And I'm not selfish enough to take that away from him.

I'll miss him.