Place Out of Mind
Hi! Remember me? I’m that little girl that used to follow you around and imitate you while you brushed your long, long straight hair and put on your lip smacker… bubble gum flavour, I think it was? Mom even let me have my hair like you, but I had to have bangs; which I hated and I wasn’t allowed to have a lip smacker until I was older.
Oh how I wanted to have shiny lips just like you. I thought you were the prettiest big girl I knew.
I’ll bet you remember when I ‘borrowed’ that lip smacker and broke the little roller ball inside it? Boy were you ever mad at me. I cried so hard and was ever so very sorry.
Remember? I only wanted to be just like you.
My big sister.
I know I got in your way; always around where you were, getting underfoot. I know I was a nuisance to you when you had friends over. But I adored you so much and couldn’t wait to get bigger so I could dress like you and be like you.
Remember how I’d follow you and your friends to your room and hang around outside the door, just wanting to know what big girls talked about? Did they still play with dolls? Did they brush each other’s hair? Did they let their little sisters play with them and use their lip smackers?
Remember how you’d always get Mom to make me go away and ‘leave you alone’.
But you weren’t alone though, you had friends over! Why would one more person make that much difference?
I know I was younger, I know it was you and my brother for years, doing just fine until I came along. I know you never wanted a little sister, you told me so many times. You both did. All the jokes and teases at my expense. But you were joking, right? You didn’t really mean all those mean things you’d say? Right?
Remember...
You know, it’s odd but I don’t seem to be able to recall any real memories of times we shared together; just the two of us. I have plenty with our brother; I was Mac to his Joe. But the only memories I actually have of you are not so nice and involve tears on my part. And even now make me feel so very sad.
How had I glossed these over? Why are they surfacing now? Is it because we’ve just lost our mother? Or because I, at this late age, finally have my own baby girl?
Could be all of that rolled up or it could be the universe’s way of reminding me not to repeat mistakes of the past. Maybe some day I’ll know. Or not.
The grown woman in me wants to cry over this realization and these forgotten memories; cry for that little girl who just wanted her big sister to notice her. To maybe give her even five minutes.
I know seven years is a big difference when your little and who on earth wants a bratty kid sister hanging around? I get it. I never understood it, but I did get it.
But eventually we grew out of the ‘little’ phase and both became women. Yet still that rift remained. No matter how many times I tried. To understand you. To break down that barrier, to finally connect with you.
I really did try, to reach out and mend it. A few times. But one can only take so much rejection before they get the message.
I’m trying my best to forgive, forgive you for all of it. Forgive myself too, because I’m not blameless. Maybe I should have tried harder. Maybe I should have understood you better. But I wasn’t ever given the chance to truly see you. The real you. You kept her hidden.
I see you now and I don’t recognize that little big girl I used to admire. Is she even still in there? What happened to her? Why does she need to keep herself hiden away from the one person in all this world who would have accepted her and all her flaws? Why did she then and why does she now? I don’t understand.
Instead, when I look at you now I see time passed and old secrets, some buried so deep I doubt even you remember the details, so how could you share them anyway? Right?
And I see a wall. A wall built up so tall and so sturdy and so thick it’s obvious it’s been amassed over many years and is virtually indestructable. A wall that I will never, ever be able to surmount. Ever.
But I don’t mind anymore, I no longer want to try. Time has passed for me too and I’m tired.
Even now, as I reach way back in my memories, searching for something. For just one little scrap of a memory of something shared between us; a stolen moment of happiness. Something I can hold on to, carry forward with me. My search is in vain, because I can’t find any. Not a single one.
At least, not any that make me smile.
I’m going to consider this a lesson though. Not one I would have chosen to learn or that I feel I needed to learn; but one that, strangely has served me well all these years. How it feels to be on the receiving end of someone who is emotionally closed off to those who only want to love them.
Something I’ve taught my children not to do to anyone, ever.
Because everybody needs to be given attention, deserves love and to be loved.
Even bratty kid sisters.