the old-school guestbook archives
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a long journey from here to there ~ February 3, 2002 - 10:57 p.m. yesterday I had nothing to write about, today I have too much. and I don't even want to write about it. but I guess I need to. I got a birthday e-mail from my sister last night. happily, she sent it to one of the accounts I don't check as often, so I didn't actually get it on my birthday. 'cause it would've wrecked my whole day. she started out just saying happy birthday, and then just totally unleashed on me, dumped all this shit on my head about everything that she thinks is wrong with my life and everything she thinks is wrong with ozone. and not in a nice way, either. my sister was one of the primary abusers in my life when I was a kid. we hated each other while we were growing up, we didn't become friends until I was nineteen. when I was twenty-one, she told me she loved me for the first time. and still, to this day, when she turns that bitter, nasty side of her personality in my direction and unloads on me, I become six years old again. I curl up in a ball on the floor and cry and cry. I cried last night like I haven't cried in ages. it was just so mean. a hell of a thing to send me for my birthday. when I finally got a grip on myself, I logged back in and realized she'd sent an apology, too, telling me what remorse she felt for sending me something so negative on my birthday. that she meant what she said but that she hadn't expressed it in a way that was healthy or helpful. She'd just found out that day that her son's father was arrested in oregon, and is being extradited to wisconsin for felony non-payment of child support. and apparently, ozone reminds her of him. she said she really just meant to send greetings, but she'd been thinking about me and worrying about my health and well-being, and it all just built up and... well, you know. it did make it a lot easier to deal with that she apologized. made me reconsider the idea of never speaking to her again. and when I wrote her back, I reigned in the impulse to itemize the things I think are wrong with her life. because I'm not in the business of judging how people choose to live. does that sound self-righteous? well, it's true. I know there's bits of truth in what she said. I do need to get my shit together, and getting out of san jose is step one. I know that really she cares about me and wants me to be healthy and happy, which we all know I haven't been. and yes, I'm wishing I'd never given her the address to my diary. I've invited her to stop reading it, if it's going to upset her so deeply. or at least to talk to me in a rational way before she feels the need to blow up in my face. the whole reason I never gave the address to my mom is that I knew she'd be nasty and judgemental about my life. I thought better of my sister. I'll be thirty in less than a year, and I thought she knew by now that I make my own choices, as well as my own mistakes. I've been reminding myself that she carries around a tremendous amount of her own baggage. her assessment of ozone is so way off that it's easy to see how it's colored by her experience with lucas' dad. I forced myself to look long and hard at him, to see if there was any truth in what she's saying, but it's just not there. I think in her brief encounters with him she must have mistaken his shyness for creepiness, his depression for menace. otherwise, I just don't get it. it's true that I'm not happy in this relationship. we all know that. but he and I talked for a long time this afternoon, and I cried, and he held me, and I remembered again all the good things about this gentle, awkward computer geek with the brilliant mind and lousy social skills. why I am still here. why I'm willing to give this another shot in santa cruz. how it is that he and I seem to have the capability to dream things together, and make them come true. I have to wonder if part of the reason why she can't stand him is part of the reason I have trouble sometimes, and why I love him too. he reminds me too much of myself. he is too much like that shy, awkward girl with the bad hair and brains she didn't know what to do with, back in elementary school and junior high. who hid in the fantasy worlds of her science fiction books and didn't know how to talk to people or dress right. who could spend hours in the eighth grade computer lab, writing programs in BASIC. it was really hard to love myself back then. my sister sure as hell didn't love me back then. when she wasn't beating the crap out of me or terrorizing me, she was telling me you are SO ugly, no one will ever love you, you will never have a boyfriend. told me that so often I believed it. for a long time. I made her some dumb, geeky birthday card in the computer lab for her sixteenth birthday, and she made fun of me for it in front of her friends. I'm a long way aways from that little girl. I love myself, this woman I have become. I have realized, somewhat to my surprise, that many people consider me beautiful. interesting. fun to spend time with. I never lack for lovers. and yet, it's still hard for me, sometimes, to love that gawky little girl I used to be. sometimes I think that's part of the reason ozone came to me, so that I could learn to embrace those childhood pieces of me I'd shut away. we trade science fiction novels and read together in bed. he teaches me how to use LINUX. we ride motorcycles together and hold each other when things get rough. we dream about what we can build together. we talk and talk and talk about the state of our hearts and minds. and through it all, I am there for him as that gawky little girl needed someone there for her. you are beautiful, I tell him, you are good, you are loved. I tell him that and I know it's true. and I hope that somewhere inside me, that little girl knows it, too.
(((rings))) |