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2005-07-21 - 6:28 p.m.
So I have this sister�.only, she isn�t really a sister in the way that a sister is a sister. We were not raised together and in fact didn�t even know one another until maybe seven years ago. But still�I have to say sister because there is an irrefutable familial resemblance (not to me, she doesn�t look like me, but there is no denying that she is related to my Aunt Jeezus or my Uncle Jeff and sometimes, when the expression is right, my mother). And also, from the little time I have spent with her it is painfully obvious that we are of the same gene pool though she is quite a bit more wild than I could ever even pretend to be. And also, I invested a lot of emotional time on her when I was growing up. I always knew that somewhere out there I had a sister; giving her up hadn�t been something my mother had wanted and therefore she made it very known to us, from the very beginning of my brothers and mine existences, that there was ANOTHER ONE OF US. I spent a lot of time as a little girl pretending that I knew my sister. I spent a lot of time as a teenager devising little fantasies where my sister would come around and make life all better. I spent a lot of time in my twenties, before I met her, wondering if every single girl I waited on or poured a drink for at the bar was my long lost sister. So, I had a lot of my own self wrapped into her. So when I did meet her finally (long long story about how that all came about) it was probably one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life because there were so many questions, 25 year old questions, answered. There was a HUGE sense of relief and I was happy that there was some other woman out there besides my mother and myself that had our pretty distinctive arms. So�I have this sister. I don�t talk to her very often, maybe a few times a year. We�ve both been very busy in life and I think it was too much to also forge a friendship with someone who is supposed to be a sister. It�s a weird dynamic. I was supposed to call her before I left the states�but in the jumble of everything, the chaos, I never got around to it. And then we arrived here and we had no phone and when we finally got a phone there is some stupid echo in the fucking line so no one will ever stay on the phone with me for more than five seconds anyway�.ANYWAY�my mother finally talked to her and got her e-mail address for me so this morning I sent her an e-mail. And then I realized that I was completely nervous to get her response. Not because I was nervous to get a response or take up communication with her�but because I realized that I had never read her written word. I know she is very well spoken, but I have learned that being well spoken means nothing when it comes to actually writing something down. I was nervous that the e-mail I got in response was going to be filled with blatant grammatical and spelling errors. I was nervous that I would find out that she was an idiot. Isn�t that terrible?? But since arriving here I have had much more communication with people via e-mail and I have discovered that most of the people I knew in life previous can�t write a coherent sentence, or spell a word over three letters long. And that almost horrifies me. I can�t handle it, it�s as though I know some terrible secret about these people now. I just don�t understand how people that I thought were kind of intelligent can write so badly??? As terrible as it was for me to be nervous about what kind of moron I might be presented with once I received her reply�that�s how I felt. I do realize that I am not perfect and that I make mistakes in everything I write. Sometimes I can�t spell at all�but the things I have seen�man, you wouldn�t believe them. It�s like some of these people are in first grade. In fact, my friend�s daughter who is in second grade and writes me e-mails writes better than some people. But I got a reply from her and it was perfect. Very eloquent and no glaring spelling errors. Other news�. This weekend is the festa major for our little village. This is, of course, ridiculous. We have ONE tiny street here. But there is a big fiesta anyway. And apparently a lot of people come to it. I wasn�t totally horrified by this until yesterday when a big truck delivered a stage and left it right in front of our door. Oh, and when we got the program of events and I saw that at midnight the band starts and there is all night disco (which I assume means dancing not actual disco.) In any case�we are having a BBQ Saturday night. I have to do it eventually as Eric�s friends here have been waiting for our inaugural BBQ, so this weekend is as good as any since apparently there are going to be hundreds of people here anyway and sleep on Saturday will be impossible due to the all night disco and the fact that the STAGE is in front of our door. I am trying to remember that this is all experience. My darling boy has an actual fever today. He slept all day yesterday and then today when he came home for lunch I took his temp and he has a real live fever. I hate that. I wish he didn�t have a fever. Why does he have a fever? WHY? Yesterday when I was at the gym some guy tried to look up my shorts. He was being all sneaky about it but I know what he was doing. We had guests this week. They rode all the way from SWEDEN to SPAIN on a motorcycle. And the girl is three months pregnant. Can that be good? I think Swedish people speak better English than Americans. And I love that their word for hello is hey. And I love how they say hey. My friend Jim married a Swedish girl and now they live near Stockholm. I think we will go visit them one day when I done taking a break from airplanes. Or�I could just ride a motorcycle all the way there. Yeah, so that�s it. I�ve been coping lately, been very withdrawn and quiet. I realize that I am not letting myself be myself and that is why I have been so frickin whacked lately. I need to do my stuff�so August is my month. No visitors, no trips, no language classes, no doing this or that�just my stuff. I need a little strength rebuild. |
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