Thread: Musings of a Muse

Happy Christmas. But The War Isn't Over. So this is Christmas... And what have you done? Another year over... So the update behind the pictures my sister is supposed to be sending me? Allegedly she will be doing so at the end of this month but I have my doubts. After all, why give up such a valuable tool of manipulation? Your sharpest knife. Christmas is a time of year that I'd rather just forget, in all honesty. I know as time goes on, the pain of loss is supposed to get easier to deal with but it doesn't. At least, not for me. Or maybe I'm just that pathetic, y'know? I see all the families rushing off together, children holding the hands of their parents and I have to admit to feeling extremely jealous. I'm having a hard time recalling the faces of my parents and I dread the day I wake up and I can't see them at all. They weren't the best parents in the world, but they were still mine and that's all that matters to me. I wasn't the greatest first born either but I was still theirs..even if my mother denounced me on her death bed allegedly and that my father's parting words to me were, You will be nothing without me. I'd like to think that it was his way of making me angry, angry enough to challenge my family's method of doing things, to break the cycle. We're like a pack of wild dogs fighting and preying on the weaker ones in the hopes of reaching the top. I had enough of the back-biting and the politics so I left. Was going to leave behind everything familiar and strike out into the unknown. Hell, if Rhoda can toss her hat up into the air while standing in the center of New York, making it after all, I could too, right? Right? Eight years later, I'm sometimes unsure if I should throw my hat or not. With the arrival of Christmas, I know the year is nearly over, just a handful of days left and then we will be in January The blackest month of the year for me. I hate the way the pale winter sun reminds me of that day when I was thirteen and my father came home from the hospital to spend Christmas with us. Even though I was happy to see him, I knew that he wouldn't last another season with us no matter how much my heart tried to convince the rest of me otherwise. And yet, I miss him terribly and wish that he were still around years later. Of my two parents, he was the one that I could trust the most and could understand. I could talk to him about anything and I knew it wouldn't be twisted and turned against me later. When we fought, it was simple and then over and done with. Even my mother, the machevillian bitch that she was, I miss her as well. Like I said, they weren't the greatest parents but they were mine and I learned a lot from them, both good and bad. And..I'd give anything in the world just to see their faces one more time. It may not seem like such a big deal to many, but I cannot put into words what it is like to stare at my reflection and wonder, Are these eyes something my mother gave me or does my hair belong to my father? Which one do I look more like now? My sister looks like our mother, and seeing her face is startling. Not to mention the scant few times that we do talk on the phone, it's so odd to hear a voice that sounds a lot like mine. To hear someone speak the same way I do and know that it belongs to a person I love and hate at the same time. But maybe that's the strange karma between siblings, ne? I still hate her for lying to me and keeping the news of our mother's failing health a secret until after our mother died. And rubbing it in my face that she managed to keep the funeral arrangements from me until months after they ceremony and how the family still thinks I'm crazy and goodness knows what. I hate the emotional tug-of-war she likes to play and yet I'm a sucker for the game. She's all the family I have left and where I come from, in the house I was raised, you don't turn your back on family...even though I walked away without looking back eight years ago. So we shall see if she does send them at the end of this month, it would be nice if she kept her word, but people in my family are not known for being nice or keeping their word. Still...dogs learn new tricks all the time and maybe the war will some day be over.