2006-08-12
What Is Really My Space and My Role
It has been a slow week. I bought clothes. I paid bills. I trashed my room and went for walks. I'm trying to read Oliver twist but finding very little sympathy for Oliver. If I was away from home, orphans would probably elicit more sympathy from me... funny how that works! On the weekends I hang out with a friend, on the weekdays I go for long wandering walks. If it is hot, I may lay by the pool tomorrow.
My sister is very sick, and I do not know how to handle it. She is gone for the week; I do not have to handle it. It is not mine to handle, anyways. I just feel as though someone ought to. I know that less action is probably best, but when does it cross the line into negligence?
I keep telling myself that it is not me. This is not me. I have to let her go through this. And besides, what else can I do? Love her. Be there. Listen. Show her that my Mother's prodding ways just aren't the truth. I just don't want to be one of those people that does nothing. My mother thinks she's alright because "she's eating food". It's not enough, not nearly. But I guess if your daughter is not eating woodchips or named Suzza she is perfectly fine.
I found out that someone whom I thought wanted to see me -- someone that I wanted to see - doesn't, and that sucked a little bit, as well as left me with a lot of time and little bit more head space.
I guess, in the end, it's better this way. We'll maybe see each other at our ten-year or something, and we'll softly and unconfidently chat about how we "lost touch". And how that was sad, and how we should email. And she'll maybe have kids or I'll have kids or a bad haircut and I wonder which one of us will carry the truth. I'd rather leave it up to an unanswered email or phone call than to an argument, anyways -- I have my friends and hobbies, and she has hers. I wonder, what happens if I see her at Save-On, or at the photo department in Superstore? Do we talk? Do we look away? Do I shake her hand? Or do I keep nervously looking at the 99-cent underwear, and stumble around a corner of cosmetics, gasping. Because that hasn't happened. Not at all.
This is a summer of learning how to give people the space they need. Even if it feels like it's my space, and my oxygen.
suzza at 10:18 p.m.