I wouldn't be one bit surprised if I got the phone call any day now. If she had destroyed her living self before the age of 30. It's difficult to care, these days. I find it much easier to simply push her out of my thoughts so they do not consume me. Worry for her safety, her health, her well-being, her life has lost us all sleep, has given us wrinkles, high blood pressure. Our unconditional love is slowly receding.
I no longer feel any guilt, like I used to when I recalled us both taking acid together, smoking cigarettes and weed outside of the watchful eye of my parents. I was a little old to start experimenting with such things, compared to those I know now, and she was just a few years too young. I was maybe 19 or 20 when she told me her, her best friend, and her friend's boyfriend had used heroin in high school. Needles and everything. The couple quit, querying "Why the fuck are we doing this to ourselves?" and she continued for "two weeks", or so she claimed. I remember that night clearly, but more clearly the numbness and shock. I remembered that being a busy semester in college and not calling home enough, not talking to her enough. I realized why, and wondered how this all had happened under our noses. I remember thinking, thank god she at least had the sense to quit. This obviously did not last.
Her best friend, Sara, is no longer so. She has been long out of touch. She really doesn't have any friends, my sister. Not anymore. None that aren't selling, buying, or doing drugs to, from, or with her. It's sad to think about -- down and out, over and over again, and no one to even talk to. She had her second abortion this year, this time at 24 weeks. She had no idea. I heard a glimmer of humanity in her voice that day, when she told me the sex of the baby. It had been a girl. My mother and I lit candles that night for the grandchild and niece that was better off dead than to live to see the world outside her negligent mothers womb.
Generally, her attitude at least pretends to lack care, humility, or humanity.
"I'm in denial," she attempts, and my husband and I shake our heads, and I cover my face with both hands.
All her money admittedly goes to drugs. Her late 30-something boyfriend is no better off, emotionally manipulative with just an addictive of a personality. She caught the bouquet, recently, at a cousin's wedding a few weeks back. The entire table of family watched, all thinking simultaneously, dear god, please not him.
I used to stay awake nights, thinking of her, worrying about all these horrific scenarios in my head. I used to care so much that it made me desperately upset, and I remember seeing a therapist and she was the first thing I started talking about. I have always this heavy, dark cloud of guilt. I never told my parents what she was doing. I never ratted her out. Turned a blind eye, and therefore assisted in enabling her destructive behavior. I cannot allow myself to feel guilt for this anymore. It is not, nor has it ever been, my fault. She is hard wired to follow this frightening road and she doesn't give a flying fuck.
In lieu of her inability to help herself and her inevitable path to ultimate destruction, I have officially turned myself off. And that is why I wrote this post, though I doubt she will ever see it. Trying to get you to help yourself, Caron, seems completely impossible. Only YOU have the power to change your life. If you are okay with the way things are going, you will surely not live to see 30. If you need me, I will be here, but never in the same capacity. I will not try and call you 50 times to never speak to you for more than 5 minutes. I will not send you text messages asking how you are. I can't be a real sister to you again until this is over, however you choose this to happen.
