You are such a phoney.
You jump on the band wagon so people
will look at you.
This is your latest cause.
What a bullshitter you are.
I listened to my sister, my only living
family member, tell me that she thought I was a false person.
She doesn't know me. She doesn't
believe me.
A wave came up my neck and my lips went
numb as I softly uttered the words, I think you should leave my house
now.
She jumped and cackled and screeched in
my face.
I knew it! I knew you would do this!
She laughed in a sinister way and humped past me into the next room
where her suitcases and belongings lay strewn across the room. Screaming. Hollering about what a horrible fake person I am
and that she had predicted I would do this to her.
I tried to take back the words, but she
vitriolically refused to consider that possibility. She continued to
tell me who I am. And that she hates me, and has always hated me.
I know, I replied.
She left the room to get some things
and start to dress.
Fait accompli, thought I. So I began
zipping her luggage and carrying it outside to her car. It was minus
sixteen.
This escalated her fury, but hastening
the departure would shrink the tirade. This I knew. There was no
discussion to be had.
She resisted my efforts to remove her
possessions from my house, verbally and physically, but I continued
anyway. This made her hate me more. She dressed in the porch –
probably minus ten out there. Not very nice of me, but she had by
now refused to come in. And I didn't care.
She had told me she had no cash, so I
gave her twenty dollars for gasoline. She accepted this.
I removed her dog's bed and other
paraphernalia as well. Load after load, boxes, tote bins bags. I
just kept carrying them to the car until there was nothing left in my
house. She tried to prevent me from carrying things from the porch
to the car, and we had a comical wrestling match by the door as she
kicked and pulled hair and flailed her arms and screamed until she
ran out of steam. Then I continued until there was nothing left in
the house. By then, she had her coat on and had begun loading her
car.
Outside, she was still screaming her
hatred at me. She screamed how pathetic I am. How I deserve to be
isolated.
I said several times that I would like
to take the words back, but she seemed to relish that they had left
my lips. She never once considered taking back any of the words she
spewed forth my way. Neither the words before, nor after my having
asked her to leave. I guess she believes them to be truth. I told
her I was sorry. She was wild and screeching. I asked her why so
loud, and she laughed, saying she wanted my neighbours to know the
kind of person I am.
There was nobody around and I don't
care what people think of me. She doesn't realize that. She thinks,
what people think of me, is the most important thing in my life. How
could she think that? That every motive I possess is grounded in a
desire for other people to think I'm great, in some way. She really
does hate me, and she really does not know me.
I was sad, and disappointed about this.
I sent her an email telling her that I do not want to remain
estranged. I also listed four items I found after her departure:
cigarettes, lighter, glasses, and hat. I will deliver them to her
friend's house tomorrow.
Now it is a few days passed. I feel a
strange euphoria, mixed with sorrow. I am no good to her. I can not
serve my sister any more, in any way. I believe I am a good and
honest person and I want the world to be a better place, but she
thinks I'm an opportunistic phoney that only wants to show off.
I can still distinctly feel the
numbness that crossed my lips as I uttered the words asking her to
leave my house.
I have lived alone for twelve years and
am just not accustomed to people hurling insults at me, anywhere,
let-alone in my home. The words came out of me softly and slowly,
like they were issued from another world.
Now, as I type, tears have welled. The
thought that my Mom was guiding me when I asked my sister to leave
has crossed my mind more than once.
I live a peaceful quiet life.
Sometimes, I suffer mental problems stemming from ideas that whirl
out of proportion and manifest emotional reactions. I have good
cognitive techniques that I use to harbour these feelings and
recognize that they are driven by my thinking processes. I don't go
out of bounds anymore. Sometimes I talk to a friend about the
thoughts, but usually within a day or two, I am back on stable ground
and happy. I work to maintain good physical and mental health.
My sister has many problems. Many.
And by resisting her bullying, I may have exacerbated her troubled
life. But I will hold onto the supernatural. The words came slowly
and calmly from somewhere deep. Very deep.
I remain sorry. I do not want to
remain estranged. But also, I feel strong for having stood up to
her. I am not who she tried to make me believe I am. I will never
be that person, and I have never been that person. She has never
known me, though she has hated me all her life. This I do believe.
The hatred is within her. I can not make it go away.
