Sis
I can be reading and thinking: “I don’t know what to write about this time, maybe I should leave it for tonight or another time, there are so many changes going on already, I should take my time and not be in such a hurry. Why hurry so much?” And then a thought starts nagging, and I think: “Not that, I don’t want to write about that, it’s too tricky,” and then of course I know that’s the one thing I should be writing about and I see how I am trying to keep myself dozing, keep myself narcotized, by convincing myself I am changing, which I am, but using that as an excuse to slow down instead of speeding up. It’s dangerous to slow down at this point, why else would Life show me the next nagging thought, the next subject to be scrutinized?
And so, on with the next bit.
My sister. Oh I felt such resistance even considering to write about this subject. Feeling, or rather thinking, I’m betraying her by writing about her, even by considering writing about her, as if she is a sacred institution all of her own. And, of course, that’s what was bugging me. She is a sacred institution in our family, or so she made it to be, so she made everybody treat her. She’s the one with the kids, she’s the one who had the cancer and immediately decided the whole family should rally around and go on a holiday together, for what she thought would be the last time. I shuddered at the thought as I still do, but I am still so very thankful I didn’t go, considering how it went when I did go this year. To be shacked up with a bunch of dysfunctional people, and I’m definitely including myself here, when knowing I would be the butt of jokes and putdowns, when I was very aware of the fact that I need to be alone most of the time and can’t stand to be surrounded by people for more than three days, was enough to do something I wouldn’t have considered otherwise: I decided against going. Even though it was presented as this dramatic thing; The Last Holiday Everyone Would be Together. Which is fine with me, because I don’t see the point in that anyway, but I get where she’s coming from. She’s always been the homemaker, she was born to have a family of her own, also to some degree to get what she didn’t get from our growing up; love, intimacy, lots of hugging and touching, stuff like that. I get it. I’m also trying to get that, but I’m trying to get it from myself first (and yesterday was a major breakthrough in that), so I won’t continue the cycle of abuse in any children I might have. Or not. Anyway, there was a lot of pressure to come on the holiday and I still didn’t. And the cancer turned out to be less of a grim reaper than it was perceived at first. Great of course, but it did turn me into the black sheep of the family, more than ever. The holy queen with her children and the selfish, unemployed failure of the first born. She wants everything, she takes everything, she demands everything. As if she has the right to everything. As if it’s the natural course of things, she should get everything there is to get from our parents, from me, from her husband and even from her kids. She’s hoarding, buying stuff she doesn’t need and can’t afford, she eats even more than I do and gets bigger and fatter still, saying she would cut off her foot to look like Angelina Jolie, but will not eat less or exercise more. That pisses me off, doesn’t it. Yes. It sure as hell pisses me off. It makes me want to spit. Makes me want to tear through walls, demolish, break things, destroy everything in my way. How she declared my best and largest drawing to be hers and has kept it in a broken frame ever since, having it collect dust in a dark place. She wouldn’t even notice if it was gone, she has so much stuff in her house, so much rubbish, so much crap, you can’t help but stumble through the hallway, it’s like an obstacle course, things bought only for the sake of being bought. Shiny things, expensive things, jewellery, debts piling up because she can’t control herself and erupting in a poisonous explosion of tongue wielding rage if one should be so disrespectful as to carefully mention it to her. I tried to explain to her why I needed time alone, on the disaster that was called holiday, and she told me to fucking choke on it. I had made it clear before we went, because I had to make sure everyone would get it and let me go be alone when I needed it. Alas. Here she was, forcing herself on me, wanting to cut into my time so we could spend more time together without the rest of them. Which in itself would have been fun, it really would, there is no one with whom I can laugh like a retarded teenager on drugs except her. But that's when feeling good, or okay, and I was going mad. And I mean that quite literally. I didn’t get to be alone as much as I needed, which caused me to be increasingly tense, self-conscious, insecure, and rendered me helpless, I felt it reducing me to a state of raging fear, I lost myself entirely, the progress I had made was undone in a matter of days and I watched myself slip into the role of the scared, picked on teenager in school, entertaining suicidal thoughts, along with nice, comforting fantasies of how I would murder my father and tell off my sister. None of which happened of course. I was rendered incompetent, inert, unable to act, think, be. All that was left of me was a dark, deep hole of blackest fears and the outward appearance of a deadly insecure girl, trying to be who others wanted her to be. And totally unsuccessful doing that. "Choke on it"; it hit me like a hammer.
All the while sis was getting away with doing absolutely nothing, as always, and I got told (by my father) my whole life was a vacation so I should have helped out more. Which I had, only it went unnoticed. As usual. Queen sis ruled supreme, taking, taking, taking, feeding her kids crap, teaching them to disrespect their father, who in turn screams and acts like an abusive parent. So am I angry? Yes I am fucking angry. She helped perpetuate the notion of the black sheep, took what she wanted and what she considered to be rightfully hers, only to leave nothing for me. Because I was taught I didn’t deserve anything. I took the biggest hits, I tried to protect her, and as a result (or so I like to think) she at least has the ability to be herself, however unpleasant that self may be at times. At least she expresses her opinions to our father. Not to our mother though, now I’m the one who gets along with her fine, since I dropped all expectations. I stood between my sister and the boogieman that was my mother’s boyfriend. And she still takes, goes on taking, because she has a black hole of her own. We handle things differently, that’s for sure. What’s pissing me off so much? She has a sense of entitlement that I lack. She has taken things that should have been mine. Like what for example? Approval. Our father said good things about her to me. But he doesn’t the other way around, I know he doesn’t. He even says bad things about me to our mother, on the rare occasions he’s in the country. Usually he ‘doesn’t have time’ to visit me, but visits my mother and my sister and his friends. That’s another thing I should start accepting, since it’s nothing I can consciously change, and I don’t even want to make that effort, since in effect it is his problem, not mine. But it does sting the way he approves of my sister. Look at her, she’s the good one. To make an even bigger point of how I am a failure, I’m the bad one, I’m his disappointment. On holiday I came along to do some grocery shopping, and several times it happened that someone approached him saying they didn’t know he had another daughter. People thought he had only one daughter. That would be my sister. Her holiness who can’t do a thing wrong even when she’s doing everything wrong (in my opinion (not really, but with my eyes closed; yeah)). It’s her life and she can make all the mistakes she wants, but with her that’s actually true; she gets to do everything she wants, build up debts, loan money from our father (when I did that I got chewed out and judged and rejected, even though her family’s money problems have a lot to do with her relentless spending pattern) and tell me I should be at certain occasions. Since I’m the one with no life I should come and go as she pleases. I have all the time in the world, I should go and live in the city she lives in so I can be more available to her and the kids. Yeah, cos when I move I don’t leave anything behind anyway. It’s all about her. That’s it, isn’t it? You’re not as important to your family as she is. I guess. But I don’t want the resignation thing to happen, because that still keeps me successfully enslaved. I want to not care, I want it to be irrelevant. I even want her to be irrelevant, even though I love her and have always wanted to protect her, she’s my little sister. She makes a mess of things, but I love her. That’s why this is an issue. The letting go thing includes my sister making a painful mess of her life. That’s only my horribly limited little opinion of course. She is also part of the plan, as is everybody else and is trying, struggling hard to overcome our shared childhood. She’s groping in her own way, wanting so hard to be happy, locked up in fears for the future and a bitter judgement of herself and the people closest to her. I’m not really jealous of her. I tend to think I am but I wouldn’t trade lives with her for all the parental love and acceptance in the world. Maybe I should leave it at this for now. Should I? Yes, you can pick up where you left off later. Why is the computer giving me shit? Is there a good reason for that? Leave it for now, mull it over. Try to relax. Mm. Okay.
Interference from the computer, interference from the radio playing crap classical music, the experimental, ‘interesting’ stuff, which merely encourages headaches. I guess I'm being nudged in another direction. Food maybe, or a walk. So, that’s it for now. For now.
And so, on with the next bit.
My sister. Oh I felt such resistance even considering to write about this subject. Feeling, or rather thinking, I’m betraying her by writing about her, even by considering writing about her, as if she is a sacred institution all of her own. And, of course, that’s what was bugging me. She is a sacred institution in our family, or so she made it to be, so she made everybody treat her. She’s the one with the kids, she’s the one who had the cancer and immediately decided the whole family should rally around and go on a holiday together, for what she thought would be the last time. I shuddered at the thought as I still do, but I am still so very thankful I didn’t go, considering how it went when I did go this year. To be shacked up with a bunch of dysfunctional people, and I’m definitely including myself here, when knowing I would be the butt of jokes and putdowns, when I was very aware of the fact that I need to be alone most of the time and can’t stand to be surrounded by people for more than three days, was enough to do something I wouldn’t have considered otherwise: I decided against going. Even though it was presented as this dramatic thing; The Last Holiday Everyone Would be Together. Which is fine with me, because I don’t see the point in that anyway, but I get where she’s coming from. She’s always been the homemaker, she was born to have a family of her own, also to some degree to get what she didn’t get from our growing up; love, intimacy, lots of hugging and touching, stuff like that. I get it. I’m also trying to get that, but I’m trying to get it from myself first (and yesterday was a major breakthrough in that), so I won’t continue the cycle of abuse in any children I might have. Or not. Anyway, there was a lot of pressure to come on the holiday and I still didn’t. And the cancer turned out to be less of a grim reaper than it was perceived at first. Great of course, but it did turn me into the black sheep of the family, more than ever. The holy queen with her children and the selfish, unemployed failure of the first born. She wants everything, she takes everything, she demands everything. As if she has the right to everything. As if it’s the natural course of things, she should get everything there is to get from our parents, from me, from her husband and even from her kids. She’s hoarding, buying stuff she doesn’t need and can’t afford, she eats even more than I do and gets bigger and fatter still, saying she would cut off her foot to look like Angelina Jolie, but will not eat less or exercise more. That pisses me off, doesn’t it. Yes. It sure as hell pisses me off. It makes me want to spit. Makes me want to tear through walls, demolish, break things, destroy everything in my way. How she declared my best and largest drawing to be hers and has kept it in a broken frame ever since, having it collect dust in a dark place. She wouldn’t even notice if it was gone, she has so much stuff in her house, so much rubbish, so much crap, you can’t help but stumble through the hallway, it’s like an obstacle course, things bought only for the sake of being bought. Shiny things, expensive things, jewellery, debts piling up because she can’t control herself and erupting in a poisonous explosion of tongue wielding rage if one should be so disrespectful as to carefully mention it to her. I tried to explain to her why I needed time alone, on the disaster that was called holiday, and she told me to fucking choke on it. I had made it clear before we went, because I had to make sure everyone would get it and let me go be alone when I needed it. Alas. Here she was, forcing herself on me, wanting to cut into my time so we could spend more time together without the rest of them. Which in itself would have been fun, it really would, there is no one with whom I can laugh like a retarded teenager on drugs except her. But that's when feeling good, or okay, and I was going mad. And I mean that quite literally. I didn’t get to be alone as much as I needed, which caused me to be increasingly tense, self-conscious, insecure, and rendered me helpless, I felt it reducing me to a state of raging fear, I lost myself entirely, the progress I had made was undone in a matter of days and I watched myself slip into the role of the scared, picked on teenager in school, entertaining suicidal thoughts, along with nice, comforting fantasies of how I would murder my father and tell off my sister. None of which happened of course. I was rendered incompetent, inert, unable to act, think, be. All that was left of me was a dark, deep hole of blackest fears and the outward appearance of a deadly insecure girl, trying to be who others wanted her to be. And totally unsuccessful doing that. "Choke on it"; it hit me like a hammer.
All the while sis was getting away with doing absolutely nothing, as always, and I got told (by my father) my whole life was a vacation so I should have helped out more. Which I had, only it went unnoticed. As usual. Queen sis ruled supreme, taking, taking, taking, feeding her kids crap, teaching them to disrespect their father, who in turn screams and acts like an abusive parent. So am I angry? Yes I am fucking angry. She helped perpetuate the notion of the black sheep, took what she wanted and what she considered to be rightfully hers, only to leave nothing for me. Because I was taught I didn’t deserve anything. I took the biggest hits, I tried to protect her, and as a result (or so I like to think) she at least has the ability to be herself, however unpleasant that self may be at times. At least she expresses her opinions to our father. Not to our mother though, now I’m the one who gets along with her fine, since I dropped all expectations. I stood between my sister and the boogieman that was my mother’s boyfriend. And she still takes, goes on taking, because she has a black hole of her own. We handle things differently, that’s for sure. What’s pissing me off so much? She has a sense of entitlement that I lack. She has taken things that should have been mine. Like what for example? Approval. Our father said good things about her to me. But he doesn’t the other way around, I know he doesn’t. He even says bad things about me to our mother, on the rare occasions he’s in the country. Usually he ‘doesn’t have time’ to visit me, but visits my mother and my sister and his friends. That’s another thing I should start accepting, since it’s nothing I can consciously change, and I don’t even want to make that effort, since in effect it is his problem, not mine. But it does sting the way he approves of my sister. Look at her, she’s the good one. To make an even bigger point of how I am a failure, I’m the bad one, I’m his disappointment. On holiday I came along to do some grocery shopping, and several times it happened that someone approached him saying they didn’t know he had another daughter. People thought he had only one daughter. That would be my sister. Her holiness who can’t do a thing wrong even when she’s doing everything wrong (in my opinion (not really, but with my eyes closed; yeah)). It’s her life and she can make all the mistakes she wants, but with her that’s actually true; she gets to do everything she wants, build up debts, loan money from our father (when I did that I got chewed out and judged and rejected, even though her family’s money problems have a lot to do with her relentless spending pattern) and tell me I should be at certain occasions. Since I’m the one with no life I should come and go as she pleases. I have all the time in the world, I should go and live in the city she lives in so I can be more available to her and the kids. Yeah, cos when I move I don’t leave anything behind anyway. It’s all about her. That’s it, isn’t it? You’re not as important to your family as she is. I guess. But I don’t want the resignation thing to happen, because that still keeps me successfully enslaved. I want to not care, I want it to be irrelevant. I even want her to be irrelevant, even though I love her and have always wanted to protect her, she’s my little sister. She makes a mess of things, but I love her. That’s why this is an issue. The letting go thing includes my sister making a painful mess of her life. That’s only my horribly limited little opinion of course. She is also part of the plan, as is everybody else and is trying, struggling hard to overcome our shared childhood. She’s groping in her own way, wanting so hard to be happy, locked up in fears for the future and a bitter judgement of herself and the people closest to her. I’m not really jealous of her. I tend to think I am but I wouldn’t trade lives with her for all the parental love and acceptance in the world. Maybe I should leave it at this for now. Should I? Yes, you can pick up where you left off later. Why is the computer giving me shit? Is there a good reason for that? Leave it for now, mull it over. Try to relax. Mm. Okay.
Interference from the computer, interference from the radio playing crap classical music, the experimental, ‘interesting’ stuff, which merely encourages headaches. I guess I'm being nudged in another direction. Food maybe, or a walk. So, that’s it for now. For now.
posted by M. at 6:37 PM
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