I can write this, because she won’t read it.
Mikey might read it, because he reads everything. Lynnie might read it, because she gets it sent to her email as soon as I write it. Heck, Anu might even read it after her nearly three-hour long binge the other night of everything I’ve written in the past few years. (I password protected those posts real fast) But Cassie… She won’t read this.
How silly of me to think she cares.
She can’t be bothered to answer my phone calls. She won’t even talk to me if she did pick up. She’d just yell at me about how she’s busy and ask me if I’m done talking to her. She won’t even visit me in the place I call home. The place I love and adore. She openly expresses how much she hates Hawaii. How much she despises and is disgusted by the very thing that makes me feel whole. She’s a mean sister.
Growing up my dad instilled in us that we’ll always have each other. No matter what happens in this world. No matter the argument or the disagreement. “You guys will always have each other!”
But oh, how he was wrong.
Because now she wants to have nothing to do with me. She’s breaking up with me. Literally. She wants a break from me.
She doesn’t want to see me.
She doesn’t want to talk to me.
She doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.
I thought going through a relationship break up was bad, but now the person that I am bound to by blood doesn’t care. The person I would give my life for… I would sacrifice my life before I let anything bad hurt my sister. She doesn’t want to be my friend.
And I have tried so, so hard to be her friend.
I know that there is no monetary measurement that I could fulfill for her. She makes three times the amount I do, and she can buy herself whatever it is in the world she wants. So it’s not like before when I paid for her high school graduation lunch party. It’s not like when I was the older, working sister and would pay for her meals when we went out to eat. Cassie can do that all on her own.
So I had to do something different.
At first it was fighting anyone who got in her way. Those college financial advisors, they hated me. I would call them, I would email them, I would bug them until we made sure that my sister wasn’t paying a dime more than she was supposed to for her tuition. Then sometimes it was my parents. I would yell at them and I would fight them to make sure she wasn’t being treated badly.
But even that had come to an end. She entered the world of accounting, and I have no idea how to fight for her in that world. She became an adult with a career and friends and a life that I had no idea how to navigate let alone lead the way on the battleground.
Again, I had to do something different.
This is where we entered uncharted territory. No longer just sisters. That wasn’t going to keep us together anymore. We had to be friends.
Two people who invested in one another. Two people who asked questions and actually listened to those answers. So what exactly do you do for work? And who are your friends? And how’s that new hobby that you picked up? All things I would have known before because I was her sister, but now things I have no idea about because we’re living two separate lives. Not the life of Meg and Cassie in the Burlingame Apartment or the Point Loma Nazarene dorm room. I’m Meg the preschool teacher in Hawaii, and she’s Cassie the almost accountant in San Diego.
And as of today, Cassie the almost accountant in San Diego has decided that she no longer feels safe around Meg the preschool teacher in Hawaii.
She feels judged. She feels criticized. She feels looked down upon and ignored. She feels like she is being treated like a kid and that her boundaries are being invaded. So rather than try to communicate with her sister, she will just sever that tie.
Rather than try to put in the effort, she just won’t make plans to see Meg. She won’t go on international trips with her. She won’t go with her to Disneyland. She definitely won’t be visiting her in Hawaii. She won’t be calling her. She won’t be talking to her. She won’t, she won’t, she won’t.
Not like how Meg sacrificially gave Cassie her Taylor Swift tickets. Not like how Meg talked her friend out of going to the concert as well so that Cassie could go with one of her friends instead of just with Meg’s friends.
Not like how Meg will drop everything in a moment’s notice to help Cassie. Oh, Cassie forgot to set her alarm and can’t buy the Cinderella Story sweater she really wants? It’s ok. Meg’s in the middle of changing Kainalu’s diaper but she’ll pause to get on her phone and charge the sweater to her credit card. Oh, Cassie wants a pair of boots that are sold out from Madewell? Meg will hunt them down and search through all the shoes in the store to get them shipped overnight to Cassie.
Not like how Meg thinks of Cassie everywhere she goes and in everything she does. Oh, Cassie isn’t here to enjoy Disneyland or Disney World? I should send her a postcard. I always send her a postcard. I’ve never gotten a postcard from Cassie. Not from her Nashville trip. Not from her Colorado trip. Not even from the San Diego Zoo. Oh, Cassie has never tried this or never seen this. I should tell her what it’s like. I should tell her what I did because she wasn’t there to do it with me and it was something I really enjoyed and would have loved to do with her. So maybe by telling her about it, it could feel like I shared that special moment with her.
But none of that even matters anymore, because I’m just the poor, selfish, self-centered older sister.
Enjoy being an only child Cassie.