This September has been full of anniversaries. Kris, Brandi, and Zach’s birthdays. The one year of my first post on this website. The two year anniversaries of my job and the car accident that ruined my back. September 11 was Jorden’s first birthday, the five year anniversary of the terrorist attacks, and the sixth anniversary of this. Nearly every day of the first two weeks of this month has held some significance. I wouldn’t even realize how strong it could be until this weekend.
Five months ago my sister JoAnn and my niece Tatum moved in while Jo sorted some things out. The time with them has been awesome. Not having to come home to an empty house and having someone to talk to helped heal some of the things that I let get out of control being alone in this house for the seven months prior. I slowed down, I relearned how to have serious conversations. I got to see Tatum learn to walk and run, climb (and take a few headers off) the stairs, give those open mouthed toddler kisses.
It came to an end this weekend when she moved out into a beautiful house. There are things I won’t miss, being crammed into this tiny room, sharing a bathroom, Tatum waking me up from naps by hitting me in the face with a hiking boot. But it goes without saying that I’m sad to see them go, and not just because Jo took the straightening iron and I have to spend the next week moving again. Seeing my niece nearly every day and having my sister here to talk to has kept me relatively sane the last five months, and I’ll miss that.
On Thursday the 14th we celebrated Anti Biddy and Biddy nights together at my house. JoAnn cooked a fabulous meal (I’ll miss that too, actually eating meals that involve the stove) and we had a fabulous time. We piled into two vehicles and drove out to see the house that they will be sharing with three other girls, one of them my other sister. The house is perfect, and I was glad I got the opportunity to see it. I’ll never see it again. Because exactly a year before on the 14th of September my other sister and I got into a huge fight.
We fought like cats and dogs when we were kids and all the way through high school. I vowed once before to never trust her when she said something incredibly hateful during the year I was sick. A few months after I moved home from Virginia she graduated from college and moved back to Phoenix. After two years of barely maintaining a relationship we were suddenly together all the time. She became my best friend. She destroyed all of that with one blow a year ago. She moved out of our house three days later and I’ve only spoken to her twice in the year that has passed.
I take a lot of heat from people who don’t understand how I can not speak to my own sister, especially from people who met us when we were in our good period. The fact is I would never be asked to accept that kind of behavior from a boy or my father, but it some how gets lost in translation when it’s a girl, and she’s your sister. The way she treated me that night is enough for me to write her off. The way she has continued to treat my entire family in the last year is enough to keep me angry. And the way she flipped out this weekend because JoAnn showed us their house has made me spit nails for the last three days. A year later and she can still get me so fired up that I’m screaming. Just the mention of the word “couch” and I was shouting. She continues to control other peoples lives with her drama and it infuriates me that there is no way to make it stop. Such is family I guess.
I don’t worry about JoAnn living with her. JoAnn is a beautiful, strong person who doesn’t let anyone control her emotions. If anyone can be given the credit for the slight progress that has been made in mending my family’s relationship with her it’s JoAnn. If anyone is capable of helping her let all the hate go and move on it’s going to be JoAnn. My sister is lucky to be getting Jo as a roommate, and she’d be more foolish then I give her credit for if she didn’t realize that.
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As I wrote this in my head I kept getting side tracked. It simply wouldn’t come out as I had planned it to. It was supposed to be a quick post about the amount of anniversaries this month, and then specifically how strange it is that my sisters both moved out of this house on this weekend, one year apart. I had intended to write about the difference in their exits until it blew up in my face again on Friday and ended up feeling quite similar to last year. I don’t carry this with me on a daily basis and I resent when it affects those I love. This ended for me a year ago, I just wish she felt the same. I wish I could tell her to either take the steps to fix what she’s crying about or shut the hell up. How one fight between two sisters can affect an entire family is beyond me, but I’ve grown weary of this story.
