One of my very earliest memories, possibly my earliest, is of mum driving me to some kind of camp (though, thinking about it now, it could have been on open-air market that was simply snow covered) and buying me a sledge. I wasn't even one year old at the time. I was dressed in a snowsuit in which I could barely move and securely buckled into the a child seat on the back seat of her car.
The sledge was made of bright orange plastic with black plastic handles on either side and another on on a string at the front and was pretty wide, by today's standards. She made a make-shift seat in it by putting me in a little sleeping bag, propping me up with cushions and wrapping me, tightly, with a blanket.
She did this as a means of taking me with her to run her errands as the snow was too thick to drive or to use a pram. Years later she told me how passers by and acquaintances had commented on what a good idea it was and how cute I looked in the sledge.
I used this sledge for every snow that fell on the hill behind our house for years. I had hoped that, should I ever have children, I would sit them in it when the snows fall and push them down the hill or wait for them at the bottom of as the trundled their way up the hill to slide back down.
Today my sister came around asking to borrow a few of our old sledges to take Bink up the hill and go sledging and mum declined because, apparently, she had lent her mine when she was staying with the Grogans (the family of one of her ex-boyfriends. I actually liked Charlie, in spite of his boisterous and presumptuous nature and the fact that he was known to have been a drug user, before his release from prison, and that his mother firmly believed he still used hard drugs at the time) and it had disappeared when they had moved house.
Elise had nothing to say in reply other than summarising what mum had said in very sarcastic tones. When I called out (I had Piglet on my lap, at the time, and wasn't about to run out into the cold) asking for clarification on what had happened to my sledge she made further, louder sarcastic comments for me to hear about me making a fuss over something she had done years ago.
I am upset about this. Deeply upset. Thinking back to my early childhood that sledge was, perhaps, my dearest possession for years (right next to my teddy bear). I would prey for and desperately anticipate the snows every winter, feeling immensely disappointed if they did not come.
I can't get amazingly upset about something that has happened years ago. But I am a little upset that I can't get upset about it, as mad as that might seem. I am upset that nobody saw fit to tell me until today, and even then I wasn't told directly as much as they forgot that I was in the vicinity when they had this loud discussion on the doorstep. I'm very distressed that she can regard my feelings on this matter so lightly, feeling no remorse and even finding them pathetic (as indicated by her sarcastic tone over the matter).
For years I've been saying how close I was to giving up on her; to losing all remaining love for her. Today I really think it happened. Today I decided that I was finally washing my hands over her, that she was no longer my sister. Until now I had been afraid that, should I do this, she would cut me off from my niece and nephew, both of whom I regard far more highly that her. But I should have realised that she would never do that as long as she needed a free babysitter. She might keep the kids at her place for days or even a week but normal service would always be resumed.
Today was the straw that broke the camel's back. Which is weird, in a way, what with all the things she's done to me and mum over the years; the (literally) hundreds of times she's made me get mum out of bed to answer the phone when she was ill over stupid little things that didn't really matter (yet she claimed them to be emergencies), all the times she's borrowed large sums of money from either of us and neglected to pay it back; trying to talk me into walking long distances in the hot weather when she knew a lift would be coming any moment, making me watch her children because she told mum I had agreed to do so, even though she hadn't actually asked me in the first place and things like that...
Not to mention all of those times she came at me with knives because I turned off her CD or was playing with her hair dryer...
What seems weird about it is that, upset as I am over the less of my sledge; I'm only as upset as one could be over losing something years earlier, which is to say it's like spilled milk. I feel like the straw that broke the camel's back is a petty and almost insignificant one , but when she's determined to pack so many to the beast it was only a matter of time.
I officially hate my sister, as of the 2nd of February, 2009.
The sledge was made of bright orange plastic with black plastic handles on either side and another on on a string at the front and was pretty wide, by today's standards. She made a make-shift seat in it by putting me in a little sleeping bag, propping me up with cushions and wrapping me, tightly, with a blanket.
She did this as a means of taking me with her to run her errands as the snow was too thick to drive or to use a pram. Years later she told me how passers by and acquaintances had commented on what a good idea it was and how cute I looked in the sledge.
I used this sledge for every snow that fell on the hill behind our house for years. I had hoped that, should I ever have children, I would sit them in it when the snows fall and push them down the hill or wait for them at the bottom of as the trundled their way up the hill to slide back down.
Today my sister came around asking to borrow a few of our old sledges to take Bink up the hill and go sledging and mum declined because, apparently, she had lent her mine when she was staying with the Grogans (the family of one of her ex-boyfriends. I actually liked Charlie, in spite of his boisterous and presumptuous nature and the fact that he was known to have been a drug user, before his release from prison, and that his mother firmly believed he still used hard drugs at the time) and it had disappeared when they had moved house.
Elise had nothing to say in reply other than summarising what mum had said in very sarcastic tones. When I called out (I had Piglet on my lap, at the time, and wasn't about to run out into the cold) asking for clarification on what had happened to my sledge she made further, louder sarcastic comments for me to hear about me making a fuss over something she had done years ago.
I am upset about this. Deeply upset. Thinking back to my early childhood that sledge was, perhaps, my dearest possession for years (right next to my teddy bear). I would prey for and desperately anticipate the snows every winter, feeling immensely disappointed if they did not come.
I can't get amazingly upset about something that has happened years ago. But I am a little upset that I can't get upset about it, as mad as that might seem. I am upset that nobody saw fit to tell me until today, and even then I wasn't told directly as much as they forgot that I was in the vicinity when they had this loud discussion on the doorstep. I'm very distressed that she can regard my feelings on this matter so lightly, feeling no remorse and even finding them pathetic (as indicated by her sarcastic tone over the matter).
For years I've been saying how close I was to giving up on her; to losing all remaining love for her. Today I really think it happened. Today I decided that I was finally washing my hands over her, that she was no longer my sister. Until now I had been afraid that, should I do this, she would cut me off from my niece and nephew, both of whom I regard far more highly that her. But I should have realised that she would never do that as long as she needed a free babysitter. She might keep the kids at her place for days or even a week but normal service would always be resumed.
Today was the straw that broke the camel's back. Which is weird, in a way, what with all the things she's done to me and mum over the years; the (literally) hundreds of times she's made me get mum out of bed to answer the phone when she was ill over stupid little things that didn't really matter (yet she claimed them to be emergencies), all the times she's borrowed large sums of money from either of us and neglected to pay it back; trying to talk me into walking long distances in the hot weather when she knew a lift would be coming any moment, making me watch her children because she told mum I had agreed to do so, even though she hadn't actually asked me in the first place and things like that...
Not to mention all of those times she came at me with knives because I turned off her CD or was playing with her hair dryer...
What seems weird about it is that, upset as I am over the less of my sledge; I'm only as upset as one could be over losing something years earlier, which is to say it's like spilled milk. I feel like the straw that broke the camel's back is a petty and almost insignificant one , but when she's determined to pack so many to the beast it was only a matter of time.
I officially hate my sister, as of the 2nd of February, 2009.
No comments:
Post a Comment