siblinguistics

"Brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet."

-Vietnamese Proverb

After being screwed over by my sister several months ago, I had a lot of bitterness toward her.  It kind of disgusted me how she didn't want her own brother in her home.  I wasn't asking to live there, just to stay for a while so I could try to find a decent job that would allow me to move out of our parents' home so I could start my own life.  I suppose I was asking too much, however, because she acted like I was the biggest inconvenience the whole time I was there.

I tried to stay out of her way but when we found ourselves in the same area together, she interrogated me over my daily doings, asking me how many applications I sent in, inquiring as to how many resumes I printed out, how many newspapers I bought or how many malls I visited to ask if they were hiring.  Plus, she felt the need to push jobs on me that I had no interest in.  Here she was, working a job she hated, and thought it was necessary to make me do the same.  That's one characteristic she inherited from Mom.  As if her pestering me wasn't bad enough, I was driving to an interview one day when Mom called and told me my sister didn't even want me to come to her house.  Mom got the call from my sister just as I was pulling out of my driveway to go see her.  Mom said she started to call me and tell me to turn around.  I wish she would have.  It would have saved me some anguish.

I've never been close with my sister.  I believe it has something to do with our large age gap and the fact that she's probably a bigger cynic than I am, if you can believe that.  But I can't seem to shake this latest incident, can't seem to wrap my feeble mind around her complete lack of sympathy for my situation.  It's not like I was asking to move in.  It's not like I was planning on eating all of her groceries or throwing my dirty underwear on the living room floor.  I was just needing a place to stay for a maximum of two weeks until I could find a job and an apartment.  It wasn't too much to ask, at least I thought.  But, for my sister, I might as well have asked her to walk a tightrope over piranha infested waters.  It was insulting and hurtful because I'm family and I always hoped, despite us not being close, that she would help me out when I was in need.  Sure, she did, but she did so reluctantly and then treated me like a cockroach that came out at night to nibble on the dirty dishes left in the sink.  

When I was little, I adored my sister.  Perhaps that's where some of her annoyance with me came from.  Sure, I can understand having some little rugrat clinging onto your leg might grate on a gal's nerves after a while, but I wonder if she ever wondered why I was under her so much.  Did she ever realize how cool I thought she was, how I was proud that she was my sister, how I thought she was the neatest thing since Crayola?  As I grew older, I hoped that my burgeoning maturity would somehow soften her revulsion of me.  I hoped that as I became an adult, we could be more adult toward each other, see each other as somewhat equals, instead of a idealized big sister and a nerdy little brother.  Besides, she introduced me to art and horror movies when I was little, two things I still crave to this day.  I hoped we'd make a connection over those things.  I suppose we did, for a few Christmases.  But that connection wasn't strong enough to maintain through multiple holidays.  Even as I started to understand who I was as a person, as I began exploring myself and why I was who I was, as I stopped caring about being the cool guy for everyone else, I still felt vulnerable around her, inadequate.  I still saw myself as that clueless little boy who clung to his sister.  I think she still saw me that way, too.

I never knew how to talk to my sister because I never really knew who she was.  She moved out soon after I hit my teenage years, when I started becoming aware of myself and my surroundings.  I never got to know her past the sisterly image I had constructed in my small, impressionable mind.  She never got to know me past my little boy annoyance.  And when we'd see each other again for the holidays, it was always awkward.  We couldn't carry a conversation past book or movie recommendations and her horror stories about work.  It's not that I didn't try but it always felt forced when I asked her questions, like it was more of an interview than a relationship.

I love my sister because she's family, but I don't really like her.  She has a terrible attitude and doesn't give anything potentially good a chance.  She's cold to those around her, even her husband.  And after the way she treated me, I'm just kind of over her.  She came over the other day to take care of some business in town and stayed here overnight.  I hadn't seen her since Easter and I was okay with that.  While she was over, I stayed in my room the entire time, not going out of my way to ignore her but I didn't make any effort to socialize.  Mom pointed that out to me after my sister left.

"You acted like you had nothing to do with her," Mom said.

"Well, I didn't mean to."

"You just stayed in your room the whole time."

"I always stay in my room."

"Well, you could have came out and visited."

"Sorry."

"You still mad at her?"

And that was where I became annoyed with my mom.  It felt she was more angry at me for being angry at my sister for being mean to me.  But what about my parents being angry at my sister for being mean to me?  I brought that up and Mom just shrugged it off.

"Oh," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.  "We were angry and we told her, me and your dad."

Okay, so is that supposed to make me feel better?  You two can be angry and I can't?

"You just need to let it go and move on," Mom said.

But I can't and I won't because it wasn't just some excusably tough time in her life that I happened to step into.  It symbolized how she's always treated me, how she's always seen me as bothersome.  It goes beyond that one incident.  It exemplified our entire relationship and after that, I was done.  My sister and I have never been that close and I am sure we never will be.  And while I get jealous of other strong sibling relationships, I don't feel too bad about the nearly  nonexistent one I have with my sister.  It's really her choice to be the way she is and there's nothing I can do about it.  As much as this might sound terrible to say, I don't consider it that big of a loss.

How do you talk to a sibling?  I understand the parent child relationship, I suppose.  Parents are in charge, to be respected but there's also that small window of mutual friendship that can form as the child grows, matures and becomes a relatable adult.  But when it comes to an older or younger brother or sister, where does each sibling stand?  Are they equal because they are both children of two people who are older?  Or should the older sibling be treated with the same amount of respect and obedience that would be given to a parent?  And as the older sibling, how do you treat your younger brother or sister?  Do you always look down on them as the baby, as the one who took Mommy and Daddy's attention away from you?  Or do you realize that they grow up just like you did, that they are people, too, that they are not the whiny little brats you remember from your own childhood?  Can there be more than a brother sister relationship?  Can there be friendship?  I think so, as long as both are willing.  I just don't think my sister is.  She'll always look down on me just as much as I always looked up to her.  She'll always see me as nothing more than her baby brother, a snot-nosed nuisance. 

And I'll always see her as my big sister, a stranger.  A bitch with my blood.