Fucking vulnerability

Vulnerability is my theme of the week. Doing things that are scary, showing myself, being honest, letting myself connect wit people. I’ve been avoiding this post for a long time. I’ve been avoiding thinking about it, and feeling it, its a lot. Its complicated, its hard, and fucking terrifying. I have wrote and rewrote this many times, and am choosing the kindest angle possible, as my intentions are not to speak ill of anyone, or to hurt anyone. I want to be vulnerable and speak of something that’s been on my mind, to get it out in the open, and help those who have been through similar things. Before I start, I’ve been listening to a lot of Brene Brown talking about vulnerability. If you haven’t heard her ted talk or her podcast with opera look it up, damn it is full of amazing insights. She talks about being vulnerable and it being the killer of shame. That our culter holds so much shame that we won’t even talk about it, we avoid vulnerability, that we are all wounded and pretending to be fine. Connection starts with vulnerability. I try and live in this vulnerability zone, being brutally honest, pushing myself out of my comfort zone, and honestly it’s what has sparked most of my growth. All that aside, I’m going to talk a bit more about my family, my sister specifically. If you know her, imagine it’s someone entirely different. Don’t take this as anything negative against her, as always, I mean everything with love. I am so terrified to write this, I feel like it makes me an awful person, that I have no right to share it, that I have no right to feel it. Fuck it. Close this if you are in the business of taking it personally.

‘If there’s no one beside you when your soul embarks,
Then I’ll follow you into the dark.”
This always reminds me of my sister. She has always been a person that I loved so fiercely I’d do anything to protect her.

When we were kids we had all sorts of games, made up our own worlds. In one we were these spies like 007 style, we pretended that one of the walls in the living room was a giant tv intercom, we would get our missions from there, and use one of our 5 cars to get there and save the world. (You know the usual, limo, red convertible, jeep, pt cruiser, the works). I used to put stuff in her milk when she wasn’t looking, I called it a prank, and thought it was the funniest thing in the world. I laughed myself to tears several times. I would try my best to protect her from as much of the abuse as possible. When someone was behind her screaming, saying suicidal comments, I would make faces at her and try to distract her and make her smile. I even found the balls to sit down with one of the parents to tell them never to do that to my sister again ‘I don’t care what you do to me,’ I said, ‘but never do that to her again’. I love her with my whole heart, I want nothing but the best for her, I always always saw only the best in her, defended her, would have fought and died for her. Still probably would. I want to see the best in her so badly that I gave her endless chances, took whatever from her, and made myself small so that she would feel better. None of this is her fault, the world was cruel to her, the same as it was for me, and she is built differently than I am. Her and my family got along a lot better, I didn’t ever really feel like I fit in. But I can’t imagine the damage that that did too. When I moved out I wasn’t around to help her anymore, we weren’t as close, and the world kept throwing punches. I feel awful to this day that I couldn’t help her more. I wont go into more details or anything, but just say that things happened that drove a wall between us, and we see things so differently, we have a hard time putting the whole picture together. I’m sure I’ve hurt her beyond words can say, and she’s hurt me too. I know its not the right time for us, we fight all the time, but I hope that healing can happen on both sides and that can change.

When I was 10 I tripped and cracked my head open at the bottom of the driveway. I looked like someone poured blood over my head, and we both thought I was going to die. She went to her room and brought back her favourite piece of her favourite broken toy: a pink sparkly wand that lit up when it was tapped. She gave it to me, and told me she loved me. I told her I loved her too and it was one of the most memorable moments of my childhood, for that reason. When I had to have surgery when I was a kid my mom and my sister gave me this teddy bear, that I named sunflower cookie. (Don’t ask) I still have it.

Unfortunately, when all this started, when I started being open about the abuse it wasn’t taken well by my family. We have stopped contact, until they are able to have an open conversation and be willing to apologize and meet me half way. This includes my sister, She sees me as a villain I think, fair enough, and has a lot of anger for me. Their shit is being projected onto me, and that’s fine. I love them, I always will. I’m not angry about what happened, but it’s not treatment that I’m willing to keep getting. I love my sister, and I miss her. I miss mostly the version of our relationship we had as kids. No projections onto one another, no blame, no disrespect. I miss holding onto that dream that things would get better, even when they never did. I miss the relationship even if a lot of it was superficial. I don’t miss crying after every time we hung out, and the way it was recently. She always means well I’m sure, but a lot of her pain comes out onto me. I don’t even think she knows she does it, or knows how much it hurts me. I partially think it was taught to her, part of the cycle of passing along the verbal abuse in the family. I am not mad about how she treated me, because I know it wasn’t from a malicious place, I only hope she can find more happiness and love and just surround herself with people that make her feel as amazing as she is. When I was a kid I thought we would always have each other’s back, we helped each other through the hard shit. I’m sad that we lost that.

Alright. That’s all I’ll say. This shit is sad, a certain kind
Of deep sadness that nothing really alleviates.

I don’t know if you think I’m horrible now, or what. I tried to be as kind possible and maintain privacy. This is obviously one part of the story and I’m sure hers is much different. There is my vulnerability and fear facing for the day. Ugh it is not easy, I’m shaking and am terrified to hit publish.

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Much love
Over and out.