Well as my last post said, my relationship with my parents wasn't going too well and i really just took some time off to get some me-time. I still get a bit of a subconscious reminder to add "biological" when I refer to them, but I don't, simply because explaining why I do that to curious listeners is too time consuming.
It's calmed down a little I suppose. I'm more efficient around the house now. I'm punctual with my arrivals for dinner, waking up on time, exercising, cleaning up after myself.
Not for their sake, but rather for my own; developing habits which make me tardy on a daily basis are habits I'd hate to develop so I believe it best if I tried further consolidating my pre-existing good habits.
I also tried to open up to my second oldest sister because I wanted to get a closer relationship with her and that would require me letting some of defences down and making myself open and vulnerable at her mercy.
I tried talking to her about yet another argument I had with my family was she was out with her friends. I wasn't expecting advice or anything. I just wanted to open up, present the situation from my point of view.
She didn't really listen to me I guess; she heard, but she didn't really listen, and there is a difference between the two. Anyways beforehand she didn't seem too interested in hearing what I had to say.
Then when I actually got to talk to her, reaching out, hoping for comfort, hoping or be listened to and comprehended, not just listened to-(there's a difference between the two, y'know?) it was incredibly disappointing.
Yet when the moment came, and I just told her a little bit about the argument with my parents and I was about to explain how I always felt so misunderstood and disregarded, she simply said "well, that's kinda just your fault, isn't it?"
At that point, I just realised, that no matter how hard I would try, whilst me sister and I could go out and talk like old friends, given our mental development in recent years which has bought our mental ages closer than ever, the overall basis of our relationship was still weak.
The way she treated me growing up, how she'd always put me down to make herself feel better, intimidating me into silence, everything- what she did, most of its been lost to memory. The way she made me feel, anguish, upset, self-doubt- I won't forget that.
So after it happened, I penned a small performance poetry piece about it for my upcoming school slam poetry.
On the day of the actual performance that was yesterday, I was a little nervous because I realised two things.
The first was that I had developed an accent. The accent had arisen out of watching a large amount of American slam poetry; slam poetry is still overall a small underground thing in Australia. So when I spoke to perform, I had developed an incredibly poor American-Australian blend.
The second was, because I had left the poem to the last minute, the passion in my performance and the likelyhood of forgetting my lines had a relationship of direct variation.
Upon arriving I noticed there was a music stand so my second problem was gone.
My stupid accent was strong and to took me a few lines to attempt to turn it around.
I don't know... I think the underlying basis of my sister's poor treatment has always been... there in my brain. Yet I've never really considered it due to the fact I was simply too young to really comprehend or think about it when most of it happened, it just lead to a lot of pent up anger, frustration and indignation in my head.
So when I actually got to perform, I guess you could say, at least for me, it was really a performance fifteen years in the making as I just let out fifteen years of-excuse my unrefined language- shit.
All in all I think I just yelled for three minutes and about a quarter way through the play I felt tears beginning to well up. Toward halfway through the performance they were flowing freely down my cheeks and in my final few lines I had to take a momentary break for a breath.
However what I overall think matters is that it was really the first time I opened up about my sister and I in such detail and it feels really good to have really explored and thought about our relationship in such an interesting way.
Afterwards my friends told me I was incredibly brave to have opened up about it in such a way and apparently my performance was emotionally touching enough to make some people cry. I hope they cried because they felt my pain and not because my performance was bad. Fortunately it seems like it is because of the former.
Slam poetry itself seems interesting and I want to attend a few preformances to have a taste of it; I am considering dabbling in it a little bit.
