I got a reply email from my sister on my father's side (is that the proper way to express that? It sounds like "brother-in-law" or a way to talk about an aunt or something), and she wants to know what I'm like.
How do I respond to that?
What do I choose to tell?
It's like something between a first date and an arranged marriage. We're not deciding whether we like each other enough to see the other again, exactly -- it's not one strike and you're out -- but we're not necessarily making a lifelong commitment at this point. (Are we?)
She knows nothing about me, and suddenly I'm on the other side of the looking glass, if you'll pardon the cliche: I'm the one my father never talked about. I'm the taboo subject, as he was ours. We shut our mouths against each other.
She wants to meet. She lives in Baltimore, where he lived when we took the train down to visit when I was six. She says she's into science museums. She says she looks like me.
I was in Baltimore last year with D.C. housemates. We went to the aquarium. Do I tell her that?
She says she's sorry we didn't grow up together, but I'm not. (How could I tell her that?)
She says she wants to create "a sisterly bond." (Help: I don't even know what that means.)
Her email came with his last name. Somehow, I hadn't considered that, that she might have his name. She just got married -- maybe she just hasn't had a chance to change her email ID yet. Or maybe she didn't change her name at all. Maybe she kept his.
He kept her, I guess. Maybe it all makes sense.
I feel startlingly nonplussed about all this, but earlier this evening, I broke a saucer I liked and was dizzy with rage -- actually dizzy. Who knows what that was really about.
Who knows any of this.
What am I like?
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1 comment:
She's your half-sister, right? Hmmm. I think that corresponding with/meeting her could help you figure out more about yourself. Why not? What do you have to lose?
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