usurped

i know God has a plan for everything. that He has ways of doing things that mystify me. and i'm cool with it. but i have lived my whole life feeling like i usurped my beautiful sister. i was born two years after her, but a day before. talk about lame. i always got the party nearer to my birthday (what difference does one day make?).

we went to a metallica concert one year, and i turned thirteen on the way home. i think we spent her birthday at some lame movie. again, nothing you can do about when a concert happens. but it was an adventure getting those tickets from a scalper on sunset boulevard. then to have the anticlimax of a movie for her birthday. i don't doubt it seemed, well, like a letdown.

the image that has come to me over the last few days is, the V flight pattern of migrating birds. that my sister broke the headwinds for me, made my flight easier because she always went first. she was always pointman.

she is still that for her family. she has a beautiful family. but she has not found herself yet. and i can see her beauty, her inestimable worth, her great great talent, but she just doesn't have time. more to do. kids to feed.

this is probably not cool in terms of permissions, but i'm going to share a blog she wrote to me personally. the writing is beautiful. the thoughts clear and applicable to most people i know.

this is my beautiful sister. she writes:

Just got home from our annual church talent contest. Misery does love company and I had none. It was a depressing event. Sure to make you realize all the things you had dreamed of that never happened....


The truth is I am very unhappy. So unhappy I am miserable. All the time.

I know I have nothing to be unhappy about. I tell myself that. I will myself to be Joyful, or at least a smidgen happy. But I have sunk so low. So low that I border on blasphemy as I sing "oh crappy day" over and over and over.....

I feel bad about being so unhappy. I mean there's really nothing I lack. I have my health, my vision, two hands and feet. Some would say I have it all. I even have the loving family. I tell myself all that. But this feeling will not go away. No matter how much I tell it to. No amount of self-talk, rebuking it, bible reading, or even prayer helps. I am adrift on a sea of sadness. Counting the days 'til I get to Heaven, if I get there....

I am resigned....

I will sing
when I get to Heaven
I will dance
when I get to Heaven
I will paint
when I get to Heaven

There is no time for singing or dancing or painting now. There are dishes, laundry, toddlers, pre-teens, lessons to give, and plan, classes to drive people to, friends to help, floors to mop, bathrooms to clean, heck whole house to clean, checkbooks to balance, dinners to make, you get the picture. You live the same picture.

I watched someone my age dance tonight, and she was smiling. She looked happy, even dare I say it? Joyful.

I cried....

loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

G.

what do we moms do when we hit this place? how do we live here? i contend we cannot. we must find our way out. i'm struggling with it myself. and we need each other. how to fix this, i don't know. but honesty, like the painfully beautiful honesty above, is half the battle. i hope my sister's friends hold her close and let her know they love her. i'm so far away. my arms only reach so far. but she knows i love her. and that is all i have to offer. my love.