My (younger) sister graduated from college this past Saturday. I believe she now has a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology. Good for her. She worked hard for it. My sister and I have never been that close. We are almost eight years apart so you can imagine what it's like when you're a teenager and you're forced to drag along your kid sister. Anyway, we got through that part of our lives fairly well. Things were fine until my mother moved to Florida and allowed me to finish my last year of high school in Toronto. My sister was 8 years old and I was 16. I think that year of us being apart and her being basically thrown into a totally new environment has a lot to do with her present "issues." All she had was my strict mother and no buffer or big sisterly influence. She left her French Immersion elementary school and ended up at a not-so-good elementary school down here where she couldn't even understand her teacher's english (my mother couldn't understand the teacher either). Well, when I finally did move down here whatever we had before was pretty much gone. We certainly grew apart and it hasn't stopped since then. That's not to say we don't make any effort but I've come to the realization that we will probably never be close like good friends. To be good friends you have to understand each other and get along, have things in common, etc. We have none of that so we settle for civil communication. If you want to know extremes, we are they. I'm the introvert, she's the extrovert. I don't need but one friend, she needs every friend including all of mine. I love mathematics and science, she's more creative. We both have our good points and our bad points. I understand and accept and expect that. But yesterday, yesterday I gave her a piece of my mind - and you know it's serious when I use my daytime cell minutes to do it! We didn't see eye to eye on a subject and she felt the need to call me and try to make me feel guilty. I know the real reason she's hurting and I've been trying for years to help her understand those reasons, but she can't seem to get it. Instead she lets it affect her, she allows herself to get into unsafe situations, and to top it off she wrongly directs her aggravation towards me. She made a few statements a couple of weeks ago that I took personally. So yesterday when she called with some foolishness as a continuation of the previous weeks conversation, let's just say I had more than a few words for her to let her know how I felt about the situation.

I worry about her. I worry about when she's going to grow up. She's ambitious and beautiful but sometimes she ain't got no sense. I hate airing laundry which is why I've been purposely vague, but this latest drama has bothered me to no end. I don't expect her to be like me. Of course not. I do expect people to figure out that 1+1=2 when they're taught how to add. Some people pay attention in class while others don't want to be in class, and others still are in class but are mentally out to lunch. Why can't we all just pay attention?

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I'll try to make my next post less depressing than the last couple have been.