enough said

Well, it finally happened, the thing I feared most - my beloved sister found my blog. she read every word i wrote about her. it makes my stomach turn to think about it. i feel absolutely VIOLATED. it's worse than when my dad found my diary under the mattress in high school and read every word of it. he read about my dislike for my nutty stepmom and told he i needed to sit down and have a talk with her, he read about my boy blathering, and worst of all he read all of the stuff about how all i was eating was popcorn and cottage cheese, and how i thought i was fat fat fat. i almost passed away from embarrasment. i felt shame that he had read these things, and that's when i got paraniod about writing stuff down, which is a curse since writing has always been an outlet for me.

So now, 17 years later, it has come full circle. i was finally getting over the fear of someone close to me reading my blog, finally writing with honesty, and now this. we were at a party last Saturday night and my sister was so NOT having fun, she was in a foul mood, and suddenly she just threw it out, an accusation. "I found your blog." a challenge. i felt weak, i felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the room. i didn't know how to respond, she had gotten me. fuck. i was, i am screwed.

What to do now? i have kept all of the past writings, but i have changed many of the identifying details. i don't know if i'll be able to write about her much on this blog anymore, which is too bad for me since at times it was like therapy. i can't believe she went looking for the blog and then read every word. i picture her sitting at her sleek chocolate computer desk, savoring every word. i hate that some of what i have written is critical and that she read it. i hate it if i hurt her. both mostly i hate it that she didn't have the respect to not read what she found, to not have gone looking for it in the first place. she claims that when i told her in passing that i had a blog and wrote about her sometimes, that she thought it was an invitation to read it; this is what bothers me most of all, b/c it's complete and utter bullshit. had i wanted to issue her an invitation to read it, i would have sent her a link.

enough said.

Labels: hurt

buh bye

i hope you're happy. it's over now, i won't write here anymore. i can't be honest if i know i'm being judged. you made me feel like shit tonight and i have no desire to feel that way again - thus, i'm going to change things. thanks.

hot dogs for breakfast

Why is it that people at Midway Airport seem to think that eating pizza, superdawgs, quarter pounders and doritos for breakfast is a good idea? No wonder everyone in this country is obese. I'm looking around me right now and everyone has food. Pounds of it, balanced precariously in their laps, heads down as they chow down on it. The smell is overwhelming. Gross. Really puts me in the mood for the food fest to come at home - at least that fest will have plenty of baked goods.

turkey time

I can't believe Thanksgiving is a week from yesterday! we will be heading to Ohio to spend time with my family; we'll go see P's family at Christmas. this morning i had one of those moments where i wondered if i would ever be the one hosting Thanksgiving - at this point in life, it seems like i'll always be going somewhere else. i can't imagine having it at my place; especially not b/c we live in a one bedroom condo with no dining room table. but even if we had a house, would it be any different? at what age (i'm 32) do you start having your own holidays instead of shuttling off to your parents'?

I know the default answer - when you start having kids. but what if you never have them? do you just keep going to your parents' indefinitely? i think that we need a new tradition, like my friends T & E, who go to the tropics every year for Thanksgiving. sounds like heaven to me.

We had dinner with some old friends last night that just had a baby two months ago. we went to their place and ordered Thai food, and i have to say, they seemed to be handling the whole baby thing with ease. they were not neurotic and crazy, nor did every one of their conversation topics tie back to the newborn. how f*cking refreshing! they both drank some wine, even though she's still breastfeeding, and were generally just the same old normal people they were pre-baby. my god, i guess it can be done.

oh god

I feel nervous. today i sent my sister an email, then another one, then a third that she didn't respond to. which prompted me to call her; i got her voicemail both at work and on her cell phone. finally she called me back and left me a message that she had stayed home from work because she didn't feel well.

What concerned me is the way her voice sounded. dead, utterly void of any emotion. resigned. defeated. depressed. there, that's the word. depressed. i am nervous that her depression is coming back.

So i called her back and asked her, flat out, if she was feeling depressed. she took my head off, snapped at me defensively, "i'm not always depressed, you know." i know. but i can hear it in her voice. and when she is depressed, it scares me.

This is the exact time of year that it usually happens. it's always in November, a couple of weeks after Daylight Savings Time begins. in fact, i remember on November 11, 2003, she wrote me an email detailing her depression. at the time she had just made the decision to go off her meds and was having a bad reaction to it - i had moved back to Chicago a couple of months before that and we were living together, and i was miserable. you know those ads that are on TV now, about "depression hurts"? it's true, depression does hurt, not only the person suffering from it but those who love that person. i don't know a time in my life when i've ever felt more helpless and scared. here's a sample of the email she wrote me; i've kept it all this time.

"You have to undersatnd that the past few years have been hard for me. First xx left and then you left and everyone got married and engaged and now you're back. But I got kind of used to being alone. It's not always easy for me to be around people all of the time. I am happy that you moved back, i wouldn't ever change it. But sometimes I feel like I live in your shadow...I've been surrounded by everyone being in love and getting married and i can't find anyone. I haven't had anyone hug me a constant basis in years. I can't find someone that wants to date me exclusively let alone someone that loves me like that and it's hard. I don't know why I can't find that. Maybe it's my own fault for being too straightforward about my feelings. I don't know. Nobody ever wants to talk about it. As stupid as it sounds I think I suffer from a lack of human touch. I just want to be happy."

Reading it again now makes my stomach turn, makes me feel nervous and anxious and helpless all over again. no matter what, i will always worry about her. i hate that she lives by herself and that men always seem to treat her like crap. i hate that her boss is arrogant, i hate that her friends have all moved away or gotten married or started families of their own. i hate that she feels left behind. i hate that she feels so alone. most of all i hate that i can't make her better. sigh.