Abi: It's all my fault. [03/30]

I love this opportunity to get to remember myself. What makes this extra special to me is my best friend, who happens to be my sister, is doing it along side of me. This will lead to learning from each other and of each other. It will also be a chance to know two sides of some events (and the biggest in our lives that actually happened in the month of September).

When we were little, my sister was my shadow. If I went out to play with my best friend, Christina, or to hang out over at Vanessa’s, I would have to bring her as a tag along.
I was in grade school at the time, still fairly young, probably between 5-8. To me, my sister was just this weight tied to me (and I do remember, literally, being tied to her before when we were at Disney one year. It was one of those child harnesses.)
I felt so bothered by this, like I was being punished. My sister and I were not the best of friends then, but given the demand that I must tote her around everywhere didn’t made me anything but resentful towards her. She was younger, even if it was only by 18 months, and I just… she wasn’t a person to me yet (but to be fair, the concept hadn’t quite come about yet, the universe revolves around me--- which it still does *winks*).
For most of my early childhood I had summed my sister up into just a few labels: clumsy, blind, completely lacking common sense, and my ever persistent shadow.
When I say shadow, I mean, it’s like her sole purpose was to be like me.

One event that stands out in my mind is when she fell and busted her forehead on the cement steps to the house. I’d ran up the stairs to the front door, and I guess she took the same approach… except she wasn’t very coordinated.
Mum went into a panic, which is my mum’s speciality, and they rushed my bleeding sister to the hospital .There she received several stiches (and still has a scar to show her monkey-see/monkey-do ways), and I received punishment.

It was always my fault.


A theme in my childhood was if my sister was crying, it was my fault no matter what had actually happened.
I was the oldest. I was to know better. I was to be the most responsible, and I wasn’t to pick on my sister (even if she started it). It was a role I didn’t want, and rebelled against until my teenage years (where there began a complex love-hate relationship towards her).


I wish I could find that picture of my sister and I sitting on the back of the car  when we were but toddlers. She was fussing and I had a very content look on my face. This was a very good image to represent our childhood and the relationship we had.