Starting Over

So far this year I have watched a season and a half of Friends, played I don't know how many games of Candy Crush and thought about starting up this blog each day and done nothing about it. So, instead of packing up the Christmas decorations, cleaning the dishes or taking a nap to get rid of this low grade headache that's plagued me all morning I am going to write.

I started this blog years ago - before I met Tre, got married, had a baby etc... I began writing blog posts when I still had a myspace account. Actually, I still may have a myspace account... We all probably still do. I've been a stay at home mom for two and half years now. I quit the job that let me travel around the world to be the world for my children.

I am expecting a second daughter this May, which will make our girls three years apart. I really thought we were having a boy this time so I've had to reconcile with the fact that I will be spending the rest of my life trying to help these two girls have the relationship I never had with my sister. I have a great relationship with my brother, granted I was fourteen before he treated me like anything but a pain in his side. Age, life and shared experiences have grown us together and made the five and half year age difference a division of the past. My sister and I are only two years apart, but age, life and a lack of shared experiences have grown us apart. We grew up riding bikes and sharing barbies; she was my built-in friend. I defended her on the playground when kids were mean to her -often standing up to bullies in my class to do so.

I guess I've always felt protective of her. Or rather, that's what everyone in my family did --they protected Katie. When she was fifteen months old; Katie had grand mal seizures. These seizures were unprecedented in my family and left my medically minded parents at odds with each other, her diagnosis and treatment plans. My sister was diagnosed with ADHD (before it was a household name) and was given medicine to treat her hyperactivity and inability to focus or sit still for longer than two minutes at a time. However, the medicine they gave her to keep the seizures from reoccurring sped her up. So, for years it was uppers and downers combined with speech therapy. As we grew up Katie's difference became more pronounced. More often than not I would try to kindly describe Katie as someone with ADHD and some social issues. This was before Autism was a household name and sometimes I wonder if there wasn't more to her "social issues."

I began to feel the separation when she turned fifteen and our two year difference began feeling like four. I stayed hopeful the gap would close once she got her drivers license, a job, started college or moved out. But, she never moved forward with her life and I did. She got her drivers license and had a job for a while, but then she went through a suicidal depression that left her jobless seven years ago and she hasn't attempted to move forward with her life ever since. My brother and I have both offered her a place to live while she figures out how to do life. We've offered to help her move forward, but she hasn't taken us up on it. So, we've grown apart. I have learned that my words of advice have fallen on deaf ears. My attempts to encourage to just give it a try: fill out that Target application, I'll help you write a resume, I'll give you interview tips, I'll find you a job from a friend I know... are ignored. Then I wonder can I just accept my sister as she is? Is this who she truly is? I just feel like she hasn't tried yet.

Anyways, I digress. My relationship with her makes me sad. I want it to be more. I want her to have an amazing life, but she's too afraid to go outside the four walls she's grown comfortable in. She doesn't realize it's a prison and that she's missing out on so many great adventures.

So, back to sisters. My relationship with my sister weighs heavy on my heart; it's always been unbalanced. Much of that has to do with parenting. My mother took care of the wounded bird. I didn't demand her attention so I only received it in dire circumstances. She always tried to make my sister feel bigger so she made me feel smaller. She tried to be "fair" when being fair actually denied me certain milestones. For example, it's a running joke in our family how many cats we went through. I got my first cat in the third grade. It's quite a sweet story involving my Sunday school teacher, my Dad and a very loved cat named Smokey. My mom decided after I'd had the cat two weeks to get one for my sister. My sister is to animals what water is to oil. The cats would hear the pitter patter of her little feet and run the other direction. That didn't stop my mom from replacing the cats once they disappeared. I didn't even know cats lived longer than two years until I got my own; he's been with me for eleven years now.

There are more examples, but I need to go make dinner and put away those Christmas decorations. I just always wished for more from my sister. At this point, I don't know if we'll ever have a true friendship, but that's what I want for my daughters. I want to be fair. I want to help them reach their personal milestones. I want to give them attention, compassion and love equally. I want to take care of the wounded bird and also the bird that's ready to fly. Maybe this awareness is just what I need to be a better mom, maybe it will just make me a more anxious one. Maybe my girls will love each other; maybe they'll be competitive from the start. I just hope they each feel special in their own way. If I do have a wounded bird - I want them to fly, not use their woundedness as an excuse to never leave the nest. I wish that for my sister. I wish, I pray that with all my heart for her.