sister, sister

My personality has never been fixed. 

It shifts, recalibrates, and settles into different versions of itself depending on what is required of it. At my core, I oscillate between confrontation and avoidance. I become confrontational when there is something left to defend- my pride, my sense of self, my sanity. I become avoidant when I no longer feel invested; when it feels as though there is nothing left to salvage. Especially when revisiting something feels less like resolution and more like repetition.

The fact of the matter is simple: you hurt me. You have been hurting me. But, you continuously refuse to accept it. 

Ten years. 

They should carry a certain weight; a certain ease. And yet, somewhere along the way, being around you began to feel like something I had to prepare for- an interrogation I would never pass. I cannot pinpoint the exact moment things shifted. It did not happen all at once. Life rarely does. In isolation, the shifts were gradual and almost unremarkable. A comment and opinion here, a tone there- each one small enough to dismiss. But, together, forming something harder to ignore. What once passed as humour now carries an edge. What once felt like familiarity now feels like assessment. And, once my senses react with paranoia- once my often accurate intuition takes centre stage- it is done. There is no going back. 

There is a way in which you speak to me nowadays that no longer feels soothing. It feels measured; as though I am being interpreted rather than met. I have been reduced, at times, to a series of conclusions- entitled, privileged, avoidant- labels that seem to arrive fully formed, without space for context or contradiction. And over time, without consciously deciding to, I adjusted. I softened my responses. I apologised more quickly. Apologising was the easier route; it involved less resistance- less justification. You can admit no wrong. 

There was a time where I needed you in a way that was neither complex nor abstract. I did not need calculated emotional arithmetic. I did not need distance. I needed presence- honesty. I gave you every opportunity to be brutally honest with me. And instead, you stepped back. You called it boundaries. I understand the concept. I understand the necessity, even. But, the way they were laid down- it did not exactly feel neutral. 

I tried to start the conversation. Not with hostility, but with the intention of being understood- sympathised with. You seemed to position me as excessive- imbalanced- something to be corrected rather than understood. Our conversations now feel loaded; as though there is this Kraken waiting to erupt from beneath the murky waters every time we sit down and speak.  What I receive from them is not acknowledgment, but deflection- passive aggression. The conversation moves away from what I am trying to express. It moves toward you- your circumstances, your struggles, your reasons. And then, almost seamlessly, the blame shifts back onto me. "I have problems you do not know about" and all I interpreted was this: "It is not convenient for me to listen to you" is all I interpreted. And, even now as I write, I am measuring the weight of my words. 

Nowadays, there is this tightening in my chest which I cannot reason my way out of; a quiet alertness that settles in without invitation. Anxiety at the thought of you- of speaking to you- affected me physically. I anticipate your tone. I measure your words. I wait- often without meaning to- for the moment something lands in a way that requires me to absorb it, deflect it, or shrink around it.

What unsettles me, perhaps more than anything, is not only what it is now- but what it once was. I died a small death waiting for you to understand me; waiting for you to welcome me back as I am- to forgive me. There were moments in which I felt that I was pushed to the side for someone you deemed better. And, my heart breaks only at the thought of this: I still love you in that sweet way that sisters love each other. I miss you and your sharp wit. I miss us; how we used to be. Those days in which you, and only you, were my only shoulder to cry on. For an era, it was you and me- just us- against the world. The effort, eventually, stopped mattering. For a while, it all felt so one-sided. Now it's a game of push-and-pull. And, it all feels so pointed: you want me to do the pushing. Why? For your own self-gratification? Somewhere subsconsciously in you, you are in some form of a competition with me. Oblivious as I was to this. 

There was a time when none of this required effort. A time when I did not have to anticipate your reactions or second-guess my presence. When being around you felt uncomplicated. I do not think I noticed the shift as it was happening. It was subtle enough to ignore until it was no longer possible to do so. And, this is where the difficulty lies- not in the conflict itself- but in the recognition that something I once trusted without question now feels fundamentally altered. There is a quiet kind of grief in that. 

You know this: I have borne many crosses through life. I dragged them across eras of myself- not voluntarily, but out of obligation. As only children, we tend to make ourselves the centre of gravity; the rotational pull with which the very Earth grounds itself. Yet, this is where we differ: I had to do everything myself. I had to nurture myself. I had to teach myself. There was no one there to soothe me when I fucked up. I had to walk on eggshells to cater to everyone's emotional whims. Leur saveur du jour. And, somewhere along the way- before I became this mass of bumbling awkwardness and unfounded confidence- I had gotten sick of it. And, no one is fucking getting it: I died three years ago. Life is not lived in isolation; for one action, there's always one complementary reaction. And, this is mine. My shoulders are no longer strong enough to carry another cross. 

We all have problems. 

And, the final nail in the so-called coffin has already been hammered in. All I can offer now are my condolences. As I suppose you lost someone- too. You lost a friend- her, who left the island three years ago and never returned. And maybe, the one thing you cannot fully accept, is that the person I am today refuses to continue taking accountability for the past- even when such accountability was not necessary at times. You were right, perhaps, that I am an inherently avoidant person. I have taken to facing reality on my own; in the quiet parameters of the four corners I call my conscience. I mull, I deconstruct; until the truth can no longer be denied. And, for good measure, I am sometimes tempted to apologise that I am like this by nature. Although, strangely, I no longer feel compelled to. 

I am still getting to know myself. And, you are, too- even if you do not want to admit it. Neither of us knows what the true meaning of peace is- it is a fickle thing, and its definition will change over time. After ten long years, you should know this about me- I do not like to be put inside a box. Indeed, the premise of this entire piece is that I, as a person, am dynamic- and, I understand that it is oftentimes difficult to make heads or tails of me. You can discuss me in therapy, I suppose. However, just know that, even after all of this, I will never find it within myself to hate you.

I admit- I was not inclined to read your analysis of me. But, yes, I do know of its existence. And, I suppose, I will live my life as a poem to you- and you, you will continue living yours as the poet. There is a certain romanticism to all of this- and, it seems we are both hopeless romantics. You are, and will still continue to be, dear to me. And, I can only pray you do not take me to heart- again. 

I suppose you will read this soon, too.