Regret is an Understatement

My sister was, hands down, the most embarrassing part of my youth.  She was the type that dressed weird and said weird things, but back then I didn't understand her.  I couldn't understand why she acted the way she did because it was beyond my teenaged comprehension.  So instead of sticking up for her, I helped make fun.  Instead of standing beside her, I distanced myself from her.  Years later, I feel an intense sadness over this fact.

While I laid down and let people make fun of me, Sarah stood up to them.

"Fuckin weird-o bitch."  People would say to her.

"So what?"  Sarah would say and walk away.

While I'm sure her personality left her feeling rather lonely, it made her grow up differently from me.  As kids, we were both socially awkward.  We lived in the middle of no where, and the only kids that lived on our street were significantly younger than us.  Their mom called me "that fat girl" so I stopped playing with them so much, that was when Sarah and I became invested in the internet.  We roleplayed on message boards as our favorite Japanese-anime characters and IMed our friends instead of calling them.

Eventually, I fell inline with a group of self-destructive, black-clad middle school kids.  Whereas I became invested in the real world and its social perceptions, Sarah remained in her techno-electric one.  She didn't care what other people thought of her.  She dressed weird and said weird things without worrying about their consequences.  Conversations with her were often disjointed.  She'd leap from subject to subject without warning.  It'd go something like, "It sucks you don't feel good.  Did you hear that Pluto's not a planet anymore?" and unless you knew her, it was sometimes hard to follow the conversation.

People would ask me, "Why's your sister so weird?"

And I would say, "I think she's nuts."

It's true that my sister's a little eccentric, but most of my family is; we're all a bit oddball-ish.  It's true that Sarah is, by far, the most out-there person in my immediate family.  But she also doesn't care what other people think of her.  While I worry about societal perceptions and how people view me, Sarah could give two-shits less.  While I'm widely accepted by others, I'm accepted on THEIR terms.  Sarah, on the other hand, is only accepted by people that can accept her on HER terms, no one else's.  I must admit, I'm a bit envious of her for that.

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This is a piece in work right now.  Sarah's gotta be the bravest person I know and I want to do a sort-of Creative Non-Fiction homage to her.  She's not dead or anything.  I just think she's an incredibly interesting person and the way we grew up sorta defines her personality.