World of Make Believe

Why is it so motherfucking hard for people to just get along? Why are people so fucking hell bent on destroying one another? Why are my two sisters so fucking hell bent on destroying their fucking relationship that they can’t and won’t stop fighting?

I spent nineteen years of my life living a lie. I didn’t know. I was the only one, it seems, who didn’t know that there are seven/eight children by my father. I knew of three children. When Marie found me over myspace, I thought she was insane. I didn’t know.

When we all started talking– Marie, Stacie, and me– both of them resented me. They hated me. For being the last child. For being the only child our father didn’t abandon. They were furious that I was never told about all of the children. They held it against me. It caused several, several fights. I came so close to saying “fuck it” so many times.

It wasn’t worth it to me. Do any of you know what it is like to realize that you have been lied to your ENTIRE life? And then, before that thought even has time to sink in– to realize that your sisters are furious with you because you didn’t know about them?

Welcome to my world. That’s what I went through when we all first met. I was the one they both disliked. They thought I thought that I was better than them– neither one of them went to college, both have kids out of wedlock (both two kids, both with two different men, both married at one time or another to a man who wasn’t the father of *either* child). It took a long time. I withdrew from them.

Over time, they realized that I didn’t think badly of them. They realized I wasn’t perfect. It was about that time that they started fighting with one another. One, two, three times I was called into referee. To run interference, to try and persuade them to make peace. More than often I was cussed out in the process, because clearly, if THEY hated one another, I should pick sides. I never did. These past two times, I just stopped listening. They made up on their own.

And now, less than one month after their last big fight, they’re at it again. Both are now proudly declaring that they are finished. Marie “doesn’t love” Stacie, Stacie “hates” Marie. That’s it, game over, checkmate. Period. How did I discover this?

Myspace, of course. My other myspace. I’m not stupid enough to answer the phone at 3AM when it’s one of them, I already know what they’ll say.

They hate each other.
They’re done.
They’re finished.

Nevermind the situation we’re all in anyway…the fact that we’re all torn apart because of our father, spread across the nation, ages ranging from 42 (I *think*) to me, at 20. The fact that I will more than likely never know any more of my brothers and sisters. Nevermind that, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, frankly, that I am still DEEPLY hurt by the way I have been treated, and I still feel shattered that I was lied to by my mother and grandmother for so long. My fucking life has been a lie.

I don’t cry anymore. Not over this.

I just feel fake. Like I’m not a real person.

I’ll be called on to run interference again. I know this pattern well.

Now, though, I won’t be answering the phone.

It kills me that nineteen years of my life– fuck, TWENTY if you count when my mother actually told me the whole truth– twenty years of my life it took to learn the truth about everything. It kills me that I am resented because I didn’t know. It kills me that I have so much more family that I will never see.

I think what hurts the worst, though, is seeing what little family I have found– my two sisters– destroying each other and all of our relationships.

Fuck this. I’m not strong enough to handle it. I’m not going to, either. Neither one of you will speak to me again, unless you call from a new number or come to my job. Neither one of you will see me again, unless you come to my job. I’m not getting involved anymore.

I wish I could rewind to November 1st. Before this all began. It was a lie, but it was so much better than this. I didn’t feel like a liar, I didn’t feel like a fraud, and I didn’t have two sisters ripping apart what little bit of love that there should be. The lies were so much better than this truth. So, so, so very much better.