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10 December 2005

Sister, Sister

My older sister got married this morning. We're both Gemini's. We're two years and two days apart. I remember, when were younger, how we used to argue about stupid stuff. I think I remember making her mad on purpose just to see her riled up. The older we got, though, our relationship changed. We were still sisters, but we got closer, and she became my best friend. I could tell her anything. We  started sticking up for each other instead of telling on one another. We kept each others secrets. We looked out for each other. It nearly devastated me when she moved out of the house to live with her boyfriend.  I don't remember the day it happened, although I should. One should always remember the day their heart got ripped out, right? It was hard not to feel abandoned. My Dad could, at times, seem strict and intimidating and she probably felt stifled. But I'd felt like she was leaving me behind. Who would I talk to now? Who would I tell my secrets to now? Was it the day she'd left? The day after? A week later? How old was I? I don't remember, but my Dad was...somewhere, my Mom was taking a nap...and I was in my room trying to kill myself. Sort of. I remember sitting on my bed, scissors in my right hand, scraping the blade across my left wrist, and crying. I never drew blood, just left white marks. The white marks that you get when you don't know how you got them, you just know you scratched yourself, and then it starts to get red and welty. At that moment, I felt like my life had crashed down around my ears and no one seemed to care. No one seemed to care that there was one less person in the house. Except me. No one seemed to care except me. But when I realized I could still talk to her even though she wasn't in the next room, I was able to...let go and move on. In a sense.


I didn't get a chance to stand up with my sister today. I wanted to. Had we talked about this day when we were younger? I don't remember. If we did, I probably tuned it out, thinking, Oh, who cares? I'm not into boys right now, anyway. I'm gonna go read. She's my sister and for all the years she was no longer in the next room, for all the years I worried about her, for all the times I talked to her on the phone and wanted to see her face but couldn't, for all the years we've made each other laugh, for all the moments we've been told that we look alike and I could never see the resemblance, for all the times we've laughed together and it's sounded like "in stereo" speakers, for all the shared hair-dos, birthday parties, identical outfits, for all the prayers I'd sent in hopes that she would find as good a man as my Steven and our Dad, through all the triumphs and let-downs, for all the times I just wanted her to be happy. Just...happy. For our life together, as sisters, I had wanted to stand next to her and help "give her away" to a good man. Finally. Truly, I think my life would've been complete at that point. But, well, the best laid plans you know.


When she told me they weren't going to have anyone stand up with them, for a milisecond--just a milisecond--I was taken back to that moment in my room. But my feelings had changed. There was no devastation. Just....peace, I think. As my parents stood on either side of her at that mountain top ramada overlooking the city, the minister and his wife asked them, "Who gives this woman away?", they responded, "We do." And I repeated aloud, from my spot in the crowd, "We do." I do. But not really.


She is my sister. My best friend. She told me recently that I was her rock. I would tell her that she is my anchor. And I cannot imagine my world without her in it.

posted by GeminiWisdom @ 7:27 PM |

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