Mya Sistra

Last night my little sister and I stayed up talking into the wee hours of the morning. Our conversation began, predictably, with a disagreement and then pinball bounced through the weighty subjects of love, life, loss and forgiveness. It was one of the most honest discussions we’ve ever had, and I find myself still working to process some of of the revalations.

She and I have always had a complicated relationship. When she was born, I was an only child who wanted very much to stay an only child. She was the chosen favourite of both parents, which didn’t make things any easier, and add to that the fact that our financial circumstances put me early into the role of defacto parent. I don’t think I ever really learned how to interact with her person-to-person, sister-to-sister.

That was one of the more startling part of our discussion last night. She had expected me to “just know” something about her behaviour. I had to admit that I didn’t really know her that well at all - and vice versa, she didn’t know me. I left home at 17, and with the six-year age difference, that meant our time together was limited to me serving as babysitter, gatekeeper, arbitrater and judgemental sibling. We didn’t have the experience of bonding over her adolescence. She didn’t have the experience of watching me move into adulthood. When we finally reconnected, the imbalance still existed, as I was in my mid-20s, working on a second degree and building my career and she was in her late teens, bouncing from one misadventure to the other. There was no common ground upon which we could meet and relate.

I never knew how to interact with her without judging, telling, criticising, guiding. She didn’t know how to relate to me without shutting down, aiming for perfection, deliberately rebelling. It made for a complex series of interactions, further exacerbated by our uncanny abilities to know exactly what to say and do to achieve maximum hurt for the other.

Over the past year, something has shifted. I think that I have finally started to see her as a unique person and not just “my little sister”, and I think some perspective and maturity have allowed her to see me as more three dimensional as well. She is married, has a great career, is finishing two degrees and is about to move into her first home. I am living overseas, making a name for myself in my chosen field, and traveling the world. The ground between is not common, but it is finally balanced.

I feel like rather than looking down upon her, I am able to look across and see her as an equal. It feels good.

The Song Remains the Same

People keep asking me how I’m doing, and my reply is always the same. “I’m fine, thanks for asking”. Only a select few people know me well enough NOT to ask me that, and for them my thanks burns bright.

I had to deal with the unexpected death of a loved one, which resulted in a complete recalibration of much of my own perspectives and thoughts on things. Death is such a dirty ninja, sneaking in where least expected. I expected it to be hard - what I didn’t expect was coming to the understand that you’re never really “over” the loss of the person you cared about. The pain exists like a constant refrain bouncing through the walls of an old empty house - sometimes it’s so faint as to be not heard or felt, other times it crashes into you with an almost physical intensity; a sudden gut-punch that leaves you breathless and shocked and shaking.

I think because of what happened, and also because of the general sense of self-awakening that I’ve had over the past several months, I have found myself irrevocably changed as a person. God, it sounds so cliche to write things like that - let alone think or believe them. So I’m not going to wax poetic about my great metamorphosis and all that. I just sit here knowing that I’m filled with a deeper sense of self and internal peace than I’ve ever felt before, and some of that is due to that chorus of hurt that is now part of my own personal soundtrack.

I don’t like dwelling on unpleasant things, and I usually feel that sadness is a weakness - but I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about this loss, and this sadness, and what it means for my life. I came to the conclusion that it doesn’t mean anything. People live, people die, the world spins onward. My takeaway was that I have spent so many years being so damn scared - of life, myself, other people, rejection, failure, hurt, anger - and that it is time for me to stop.

The thing is, we all have our shit to carry, and we all have our scars. Some of us have hollow places inside that can consume us with their emptiness if we let them. I’ve decided to use that melody of loss and wrap it around me and let it fill my own empty caverns, to let the heat of unshed tears be a salve for my own wounded heart.

We acquire the strength we have overcome. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Santorini Musings

To my many fans: I know, I know. It’s been a long time, and I should not have left you (at least without a dope beat to step to). So I’m going to make it up to you by sharing my latest adventure in Santorini. (That’s in Greece, and yes I do feel that I have to point this out because I recently spent 45 minutes trying to explain to a living example of the need for social Darwinism that no, Syria is not in Greece. It is a separate country, and yes, I’m really, really sure.)