With 47 days left to go until our wedding, I’ve started thinking about how quickly time gets away from us. Wasn’t it just yesterday that Val proposed?
I took my brother and his friend to lunch and a movie yesterday afternoon. We don’t know each other very well anymore, but there was a time when he would fly across the room at top speed and throw his arms around me when he saw me. In the movies, I would have had my brother plastered to one side of me, and my sister on the other. Now, my sister wants nothing to do with me, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what to talk to my teenage brother about.
They used to put on shows for me in the living room, using stuffed animals, blankets and old Halloween costumes for props.
I love that I can take my brother to the movies. I love that I can talk to him like a normal human being. But god, I miss the days when there was dancing in the back yard… when I used to have to stock up on little kid wrapping paper… when butterfly cupcakes were greeted with gigantic smiles.
I was so happy at the tux shop yesterday getting Colt fitted for his Best Man tux. I wish our sister was going to be there with us. I wish we could rewind. I wish she would just entertain the notion that there are two sides to every story. I wish she would give me a chance.
I was just barely 22 when the shit hit the fan between my dad and stepmother. In her head, I think my sister feels like that made me an adult. An adult who should have fought harder for her… for them. In theory, it’s all true. Unfortunately, if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that age does not make you grown up. There is no magic toolbox that opens on a particular birthday giving you all of the wisdom and coping mechanisms you need to act like an adult. (And it really is just an act.) If a crystal ball could have shown me then what I can see now, I wouldn’t be in this position. But here I am. I’m trying hard to be the person I know I am. To fight the battles that need to be fought.
Back then, I truly believed that our father would make everything better. I believed him when he said he would fix things for us. It was easier to believe that he would be true to his word than it was to fight my stepmother on my own. And hell, in a perfect world, a girl should be able to trust her father. I didn’t know until it was far too late that I couldn’t trust our father’s promises that he would fix things.
I am so tired of this lingering sadness. I’m tired of these manic waves that hit me every so often. I have a dream about my sister (had one two nights ago) and then for days, I am consumed by it. I don’t think I will ever be able to accept the way things are… but I also don’t know that I’ll ever be able to change them. It’s as if there is a piece of me missing. For her, I am a distant memory… her young age makes it easier to forget the details of what life with me was like. But for me, I remember everything. I know how insanely wonderful it was to be her big sister. I remember it all.
I hate that I’m beginning to wish that I could forget.
