Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Sisters

I have no brother. Just one sister. Apparently after I was born, my father left it too long before deciding he wanted to try for a boy and I had started school. My mother then said, sorry, but no. S I only ever had a sister. Lordy, our house must have been quiet at times. We were both big readers. Up until early primary school, I was my sister's willing slave and then the worm turned, some of the fights we had. A lot included her clawing me with her rather long nails. Others involved her chasing me in a rage through the house. The best thing was being able to lock her out of the house and not opening it until later and hiding until she calmed down. All while mum and dad were at work. Good times. By high school when she was desperately trying to be cool, I became an embarrassing liability and the gap between us appeared. After that, somewhere along the line I subconsciously decided to become the polar opposite of her. She was well behaved, high achieving academically and pleasant. To the point where she used to get wheeled out at gatherings to sing and play her guitar. At which point I would disappear. So I rebelled, big time. The gap widened. She went to uni and I went nowhere for quite some time. She got married at 21, having gotten her degree and I had the baby a year after her wedding. While my daughter drew us together a bit (the family could see I was actually taking proper care of her), it wasn't enough, the gap widened. There were harsh words said on both sides, but I never really could understand why I was so wholeheartedly rejected. Still don't. When our house burned down she gave us some money with no expectation that it would be paid back and flew up to see me prior to my first brain surgery. So I guess underneath, she does love me, she just doesn't like me. I can honestly say I don't really know her enough to know whether I like her and that's a shame. Interestingly she's always tried to encourage her boys to be friends (go figure, she has no insight into our relationship or the irony). I know that I hope my kids won't be like me and her, so far the oldest 2 are ok. We'll just see.

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