Casual Saturday #2

On birthday no. 62, I feel pressed to wonder why my sister thinks there is a connection between us that goes either way.  Always less troubled than I (this is my generous assumption), and with what always seemed a gentle-superior air but which I came to see as her unconscious fusion of concern (a purposely ambiguous term), lack of affection, and anxiety (and some solipsism, where it is terribly difficult for one beleaguered sibling to “empty out” and have empathy for the other), she has long fooled herself into thinking something exists.  While it may seem preposterous of me to suggest that someone does not feel affection who claims she does, I know very deeply that through all our formative years and well beyond, I was absolutely unlikable.  My own fusion of alienation, seamless neurosis and developmental abort even in the midst of the latency years, created a revolving gun-mounted turret of toxicity that would have shot away any touch, blink, laugh or word of affection, and created distaste in the other party.  And anyway, I would remember if there had been even a stroke of fondness from any of the other three in the house.

And so, I’ll say this is as good a time as any to state a terrible but obvious truth: There was never a family when families become, so there can never be one now.  Despite the fact that we may want it, it can’t happen.  Strangers may quickly like one another, eventually love.  Ruiners cannot.