One of the earliest memories of my sister was when she had just started primary school, kindergarten. I, however, that year had been proudly walked over, from the junior school building with it's childlike creamy facade, across the small alley way road that separated the dark, serious, looming brown bricked building for senior primary. This year, I had started year three and I wasn't a child anymore (ha what did I know). This is where the real learning happened, when you actually fit perfectly into your blue and white school tunic uniform and didn't trudge patiently around, drowning in an over sized hammy down potato sack waiting to "grow into it".
We caught the school bus into school and I had been entrusted begrudgingly to ensure that my sister arrived safely to the gates of her new place of learning. I was livid, not only did I momentarily have to break away from my pack of friends and interrupt my journey up the steps into the playground of the big school but I had to have my little 4 year old sister hang around me like a bad smell and at the ripe old age of 7 that was totally uncool. I didn't intend to be shy about making it obvious of my dislike for the situation and her.
My sister was and still is completely opposite to me. I was dark, more olive in skin and complexion, had thick and unruly brown hair and dark brown/green eyes with loads of freckles and less than perfect teeth (in fact my fangs were quite hideous at the time). My sister in comparison has a fair complexion, alabaster skin, thin and feathery blond hair that always looked like a golden fountain when tied back in a ponytail with a pretty ribbon. Her eyes, blue like swimming pools when the sun is reflecting of it. Cupid pink lips and teeth - straight as an arrow.
As we arrived at the gate I remember saying something unpleasant (I can't recall exactly what), followed by a get lost or something of similar meaning. She turned, he school bag almost as big as her on her back reinforcing just how small she was at the time, she looked at me, with almost no expression in her face, not the slightest bit of emotion, no anger, no upsetness, no bitterness. "Bye" she said with such innocence, squinting up at me as her little eyes were blanketed with the sun, turned back around, and walked down the snake like path to the entrance of her school, the junior building with tiny fragile steps.
That word.... bye.... had jumped into my mouth, traveled down to my lungs, got into my bloodstream, and at the moment it reached my heart, exploded. Erupting into painful dust that choked me of breath. I walked to the big school in tears.
For my whole life, my sister and I have said that when I was born and went shopping in the "gene pool" that I cleared the shelves of emotion and left nothing for her when she arrived in the world (obviously a joke but there does seem to be quite a realness to the notion).
For her and my whole life, it seems as if she was hard as a rock that nothing could penetrate those solid walls, while I walked fragile steps, cursed to be a blubbering mess.
My sister was and still is completely opposite to me. I was dark, more olive in skin and complexion, had thick and unruly brown hair and dark brown/green eyes with loads of freckles and less than perfect teeth (in fact my fangs were quite hideous at the time). My sister in comparison has a fair complexion, alabaster skin, thin and feathery blond hair that always looked like a golden fountain when tied back in a ponytail with a pretty ribbon. Her eyes, blue like swimming pools when the sun is reflecting of it. Cupid pink lips and teeth - straight as an arrow.
As we arrived at the gate I remember saying something unpleasant (I can't recall exactly what), followed by a get lost or something of similar meaning. She turned, he school bag almost as big as her on her back reinforcing just how small she was at the time, she looked at me, with almost no expression in her face, not the slightest bit of emotion, no anger, no upsetness, no bitterness. "Bye" she said with such innocence, squinting up at me as her little eyes were blanketed with the sun, turned back around, and walked down the snake like path to the entrance of her school, the junior building with tiny fragile steps.
That word.... bye.... had jumped into my mouth, traveled down to my lungs, got into my bloodstream, and at the moment it reached my heart, exploded. Erupting into painful dust that choked me of breath. I walked to the big school in tears.
For my whole life, my sister and I have said that when I was born and went shopping in the "gene pool" that I cleared the shelves of emotion and left nothing for her when she arrived in the world (obviously a joke but there does seem to be quite a realness to the notion).
For her and my whole life, it seems as if she was hard as a rock that nothing could penetrate those solid walls, while I walked fragile steps, cursed to be a blubbering mess.
You might have fetched a guess as to how, then, these lives might pan out - however think you would all be further from the truth. Whilst my life has definitely experienced it's fair share of downs on the roller coaster of life, I have always managed to hold onto hope and find the light at the end of the dark tunnel. I have never given up and although still poor, still (technically) a student and still a big fat walking emotional heart, still single, still sometimes lonely, still struggling - I still have a lot to show for it.
But my sister caught the wrong ride. Last time I saw her, she was drinking like a chain smoker - only with beers and scotch instead of cigarettes. There were bottles under her bed, left in the shower and in the backseat of the car, she is not even trying to hide the marijuana in her bedroom. My sister has lost her beautiful sweet smell of innocence I remember - it has been replaced with the vile putrid smell of defeat and addiction that matches that of the stench of a bar room carpet. She has lost her beautiful voice, it's been replaced with the scratchy, dark voice of derangement spouting remarks of delusion. This person is not my sister - it is addiction, it is a loss of hope, a loss for the want to live and it has taken over her soul and i feel alone in the world because of it. Like a lost child, in a sea of people, not knowing what to do to find the safety of mama - I feel the same not knowing how to get my sisters soul back for her.
Sure we are chalk and cheese, she always bore a stamp of originality, always doing thing 'her own way' and I always followed the crowd and trend, she was crazy when I am sensible, she was amazingly artistic and i am lucky if I can draw a good stick figure, I'm academic while she was pragmatic, I am words whilst she is pictures, I love drama and she loves simplicity, she can sing beautifully and i sound like an off fog horn, she looms tall while I stare at her belly button, she loves dirty when I love clean, she is strong and I am weak... but no..... I am strong when she is weak.
I am her yin and she is my yan. But my yan is slowly dying, fading away and killing herself. And me, the practical, sensible one, the one in control and expected to know what to do.... actually... doesn't know what to do. I feel I have failed you Loosie Toosie and I'm so sorry. This is agony to see you like, but it's not just my agony is it? It's yours as well.... the agony I stole from you all those years ago. But really I don't think you don't feel, in fact I think you may even feel things more than me but you have no way of expressing it. It's trapped, exploding inside you with no way of an emotional outlet and perhaps this is what led you to this course of action, to give up on hope. Whatever it is, if I could do anything to change it, even giving you my only heart, to make you realize what an amazing person this addiction is wasting, then I would.
I fear I will always be that little girl, alone in the street crying, wishing she had just given her little sister a cuddle.
Come back to us Luci.... please.
I love you x
