Sister, sister
When a seventh-grade boy who doesn't really know you but spends the entire bus ride staring at you, tells you that your seventh-grade sister who takes after you in everything that she shouldn't is not only mentally unstable but suicidal, how seriously do you take him? And do you take comfort in the fact that he also says that she appears to be lazy enough that she'll probably stop stabbing herself halfway because it's too much effort? In fact, so lazy that the only thing she puts effort into is yelling at her friends and kicking them?
Actually, well, the kicking part is funny. I don't think she was even aware that I had my kicking phase just last year. Well, and into this year. And how cute, she's in her kicking phase. Maybe it's all that soccer we play?
And hey, wait. She tells her friends she hates soccer. And she refuses to give it up when we talk to her about it at home.
And if she's suicidal it's because I'm a crappy sister and I bury her self-esteem and I've made her my personal slave and I'm dreadful to her and treat her terribly and even my parents have told me this before, and now I get it from my friends, and at confession last year at Our Lady of Lourdes she burst into tears and spent 10 minutes with the priest talking about how us two have a terrible relationship and I just went back to my seat after 2 minutes with the guy crying because I was always horrible at confessions and I'm terrible and she's actually contrite and sorry and I'm not and I'll do it again.
Why does this seventh grade guy - I'll call him Will, what the heck, it's his name - tell me this? It's because, I look like her, talk like her, act like her, and WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, LITTLE KID, SHE IS THE ONE ACTING LIKE ME, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!!! (I'm not four years older for NOTHING, you know) and that's just what Catherine would say, because, oh, she's now CATHERINE in school, ELAINE isn't good enough for her.
Oh, she tells us at home that she was just "too lazy" to tell everyone that she's called Elaine, but even her friends that called her Elaine last year call her "Cat" this year, she has a freaking NICKNAME for it. I'm sorry. She never had a nickname for "Elaine" so maybe it's our fault. Michael to Mike, William to Billy, Elizabeth to Betsy, and Elaine to Elaine... Okay, she was cheated out of that one by my grandmother, who hated the name Rebecca, so my sister wasn't Becky instead.
There's other things, I suppose that I should say contributes to her lack of self-efficacy, and that being the fact that she took longer to be AG tested, and she saw a developmental psychologist as a kid. They saw that she could do all the logical puzzles but could not comprehend environmental and interaction questions that required her to have knowledge or experience in the outside world. In kindergarten the teacher would write us a very happy note if she had said one word that week, and tell us what the word was. By the end of the year, she had said more than 50 words to her teacher.
I taught her fourth grade math the summer after third grade and I did it as patiently as I could, I even made homework for her. Sometimes I got frustrated and sometimes I got mad but I really tried, and she understood a lot about fractions and was better at multiplication than before and I was really proud. The next year I found out that the math I had taught her was more advanced than what they were learning so she was really good at math for two years, and I didn't know this until this year, because she got straight A's in math this year and I didn't and now she is the model student in school.
But somehow my parents seem to be prouder of me than they are of her, and it's probably only because I'm graduating, but I'm not even leaving, so what are they talking about? When they talk about me to their friends they must say that "Betsy does very well in school" but they can't say I'm THAT great, and I play soccer but I'm not in challenge, I played violin but I "didn't have time" to continue it, and I'm a good writer but I lose everything I enter, and they've read maybe three things I've ever written in my LIFE and one of them is something Ms. Covington graded, a sonnet, that was rejected by Helen (I have nothing against Helen for it, but it irks me that Ms. Covington told me that one of my lines is "awkward"), and it's in a frame because they like it so much and it has allusions and it sounds pretty and it's a SONNET ABOUT WRITING SONNETS.
That digressed, and it shows you exactly how egocentric I am. But I wish my parents would talk about how proud they are of my sister because she is the one who will struggle the most in school and I am her role model and I've taught her to do her homework the morning before it's due, and she's not as "gifted" as I am so she might not be able to pull it off. If I ever wanted my sister to be like me it was that I wanted her to be smart, and I was always mad that she wasn't, except that I realized that I never got straight A's in Pre-Algebra. If she worked hard I would call her the smartest person I know, because the smartest people are not only SMART but they work extremely hard, I'm sorry to my friends for saying that but if you don't work hard, I can't respect you in the same way as I, say, respect my dad, who can be lazy but works to feed everyone, sometimes with 48 straight hours at work, and can do 17th roots just like that super mathematician guy, and I guess I have to write essays about him being my hero.
When it comes down to what I want, I really, really wish that someone better could be my sister's sister. And that's being cowardly and running away, and everyone will tell me that the best I can do is make myself better so that she can follow me, and won't be forced to turn to the arrogant, completely apathetic, materialistic, pig of a brother that is, well, our relation, who wouldn't give a damn about us if we weren't the ones who lived in the same house, and provide for him. If she becomes like that, I'll be forced to admit, it has little to do with him, and everything to do with me.
So I rented A Knight's Tale, abominable movie as it is, and watched it with my sister, who laughed all the way through and agreed that it was incredibly dumb.
That will probably alleviate my guilt right until I finish this post.
Actually, well, the kicking part is funny. I don't think she was even aware that I had my kicking phase just last year. Well, and into this year. And how cute, she's in her kicking phase. Maybe it's all that soccer we play?
And hey, wait. She tells her friends she hates soccer. And she refuses to give it up when we talk to her about it at home.
And if she's suicidal it's because I'm a crappy sister and I bury her self-esteem and I've made her my personal slave and I'm dreadful to her and treat her terribly and even my parents have told me this before, and now I get it from my friends, and at confession last year at Our Lady of Lourdes she burst into tears and spent 10 minutes with the priest talking about how us two have a terrible relationship and I just went back to my seat after 2 minutes with the guy crying because I was always horrible at confessions and I'm terrible and she's actually contrite and sorry and I'm not and I'll do it again.
Why does this seventh grade guy - I'll call him Will, what the heck, it's his name - tell me this? It's because, I look like her, talk like her, act like her, and WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, LITTLE KID, SHE IS THE ONE ACTING LIKE ME, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!!! (I'm not four years older for NOTHING, you know) and that's just what Catherine would say, because, oh, she's now CATHERINE in school, ELAINE isn't good enough for her.
Oh, she tells us at home that she was just "too lazy" to tell everyone that she's called Elaine, but even her friends that called her Elaine last year call her "Cat" this year, she has a freaking NICKNAME for it. I'm sorry. She never had a nickname for "Elaine" so maybe it's our fault. Michael to Mike, William to Billy, Elizabeth to Betsy, and Elaine to Elaine... Okay, she was cheated out of that one by my grandmother, who hated the name Rebecca, so my sister wasn't Becky instead.
There's other things, I suppose that I should say contributes to her lack of self-efficacy, and that being the fact that she took longer to be AG tested, and she saw a developmental psychologist as a kid. They saw that she could do all the logical puzzles but could not comprehend environmental and interaction questions that required her to have knowledge or experience in the outside world. In kindergarten the teacher would write us a very happy note if she had said one word that week, and tell us what the word was. By the end of the year, she had said more than 50 words to her teacher.
I taught her fourth grade math the summer after third grade and I did it as patiently as I could, I even made homework for her. Sometimes I got frustrated and sometimes I got mad but I really tried, and she understood a lot about fractions and was better at multiplication than before and I was really proud. The next year I found out that the math I had taught her was more advanced than what they were learning so she was really good at math for two years, and I didn't know this until this year, because she got straight A's in math this year and I didn't and now she is the model student in school.
But somehow my parents seem to be prouder of me than they are of her, and it's probably only because I'm graduating, but I'm not even leaving, so what are they talking about? When they talk about me to their friends they must say that "Betsy does very well in school" but they can't say I'm THAT great, and I play soccer but I'm not in challenge, I played violin but I "didn't have time" to continue it, and I'm a good writer but I lose everything I enter, and they've read maybe three things I've ever written in my LIFE and one of them is something Ms. Covington graded, a sonnet, that was rejected by Helen (I have nothing against Helen for it, but it irks me that Ms. Covington told me that one of my lines is "awkward"), and it's in a frame because they like it so much and it has allusions and it sounds pretty and it's a SONNET ABOUT WRITING SONNETS.
That digressed, and it shows you exactly how egocentric I am. But I wish my parents would talk about how proud they are of my sister because she is the one who will struggle the most in school and I am her role model and I've taught her to do her homework the morning before it's due, and she's not as "gifted" as I am so she might not be able to pull it off. If I ever wanted my sister to be like me it was that I wanted her to be smart, and I was always mad that she wasn't, except that I realized that I never got straight A's in Pre-Algebra. If she worked hard I would call her the smartest person I know, because the smartest people are not only SMART but they work extremely hard, I'm sorry to my friends for saying that but if you don't work hard, I can't respect you in the same way as I, say, respect my dad, who can be lazy but works to feed everyone, sometimes with 48 straight hours at work, and can do 17th roots just like that super mathematician guy, and I guess I have to write essays about him being my hero.
When it comes down to what I want, I really, really wish that someone better could be my sister's sister. And that's being cowardly and running away, and everyone will tell me that the best I can do is make myself better so that she can follow me, and won't be forced to turn to the arrogant, completely apathetic, materialistic, pig of a brother that is, well, our relation, who wouldn't give a damn about us if we weren't the ones who lived in the same house, and provide for him. If she becomes like that, I'll be forced to admit, it has little to do with him, and everything to do with me.
So I rented A Knight's Tale, abominable movie as it is, and watched it with my sister, who laughed all the way through and agreed that it was incredibly dumb.
That will probably alleviate my guilt right until I finish this post.