Sometimes it just hurts so bad. It’s not an ache, or
anything sharp, it’s just hurting.
I watched the movie Matilda today. I had never seen it
before. It was just like me. Except Matilda had a much better head on her
shoulders than I ever did as a child.
She looks just like my niece (the girl who plays Matilda). So
does Suri Cruise. So do I. I miss her, really a
lot. Its one of the bad things that come from making a decision like I did – I had
a lot of really bad family, but they weren’t all bad, or even bad all the time.
I miss moments, like my mom and my sister and I all
laughing. It is true I never felt completely comfortable around either one of
them, and they seemed to sort of fuse together when we were all there, so that I
still felt on the outside. And I know that my sister thinks I’m crazy or
whatever, and that I’ve done horrible things to my mom and our family – and to
her, and her girls. And I know that it’s better this way.
But as much as I remember hating and resenting and fearing
my sister, I just miss her, too. Not so much my brother – it will probably take
more than a year of not having anything to do with him before I start to miss
him.
I wish they would believe me. I know that it is not the way
things really are, but I wish so much that they could see me like who I am, and
not like the picture that my parents always painted of me. There was A LOT of
fighting, too – yelling and screaming and pulling hair and taking each other’s
things – all three of us (my sister and brother and I) were awful to each
other, and as much as I have felt my shame in all of that slipping away, I remember
even more of how they treated me, too. It wasn’t just all me – and I feel like I
should be mad and resentful towards them, but it is really just more hurting
right now than any of that.
We were all in it together. I may have been hurt more, or
exposed to more, or hated more, but all three of us were in it together. At least
when we were really little. I remember that my dad would leave us in the van
for long periods of time while he went into whatever building we were at so he
could do whatever it was he was doing, and I don’t know how we did not kill
each other.
I remember being isolated with them a lot – with my brother
and sister – but I don’t remember ever fighting with either of them when were
all left on our own in the same place, on the same level, by the same dad and
the same mom.
I really, seriously do not ever remember getting along with
them very well, either. Maybe I have just gotten to the point where I am
remembering what it felt like to be attached to them on a primal level, as
siblings. As people who had to get along because we would die if we didn’t.
We were hurt a lot together. I wonder if they remember any
of that. I don’t think they do, but it seems like just being one year younger
than me, my sister’s memories wouldn’t be too different from mine. I don’t know
what the hell my brother’s memories are of – he probably has a mix of exultation
and misery. Actually, I think all three of us share that. I was just more
familiar with my sister’s exultation and misery because her exultation was
almost always at my expense, and when she was miserable, it was okay because
then she was being the bad kid.
One time my dad told her he was going to take her to the
hospital to get the whine cut out. We all believed him. She would get rather
terrified, and by then I would have kicked in to protective mode and tried to
get her to just stop so they didn’t cut her throat open and remove the whine
from her body. I wonder if either of them – my brother or my sister – remember how
much I loved them and wanted to protect them.
Maybe they just remember me being mean and a bully, but they
didn’t understand the things that could happen to them like I did.
Anyway, I remember being very protective of them, especially
when we were really little, like all under the age of 7. Bad things happened to
all of us, but I don’t think they remember much of that, if anything at all.
I think I am totally okay with them not remembering, and
with being the one who got hurt the most, because imagining them having to live
through what I’ve lived through, and go through what I’ve gone through just to
keep living some more, it scared the ever-lovin-shit out of me. Their fear
terrifies me – it always has.
I made my brother and sister mad a lot. I beat up on my
brother a lot, and told my sister what to do a lot. But I could never handle
seeing terror on their faces.
The idea of being separated from them used to scare the shit
out of me, too. Not because I wanted to be around them, but because they needed
me to protect them.
And then we were just all awful to each other, more and more
as we got older. I do wonder if they will ever understand what I went through
to keep them as safe as I could, when even I didn’t understand what I was
doing. I hated it when my dad paid any attention to them, and I always whined
and was obnoxious when he was paying attention to them and not to me. It wasn’t
that I wanted his attention so much as it was knowing his attention on them put
them in danger.
Jesus fucking christ – that man was an evil, sick, SICK
bastard, and I don’t know if my sister and brother are even aware of just how
sick and evil he was, even now after so much shit has come out in the open
about him. I don’t think they could really know what I know about him, and
about all the things that he could have done to them.
I suppose that would have been one more very deeply
entrenched reason I was always so hateful and resentful toward them as we got
older. They didn’t know what I had to go through, and they had no idea how much
I truly believed I was taking on to keep it from happening to them.
Whatever. I’m tired of thinking about it. I just stopped
crying, too, so no proof-reading on this one, I’m just going to post it; please
forgive typos and disjointed thoughts or words.
It just hurts so fucking bad sometimes.
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