Recently I referenced some random little known fact to my sister and she asked incredulous "how did you know that?" and I said "You told me, don't you know just about 75% of the shit I know comes from you?"
It made me so happy to be able to say that to her because we've come such a long way. T and I did not grow up together. We are the products of an unfortunately typical Jamaican family dynamic. My father is a philanderer (we have an older brother born to another mother, plus a sister born between us - to an additional other mother) and a flake who left us when I was only three months old.
My mother could not afford childcare while she worked, so I was taken to live with my father's sister and her family of three boys and two girls, while my sister went to my grandparents who also housed my aunt and her son. We were both unplanned pregnancies, but completely loved and wanted and I cannot imagine how world wrenching it must have been for my mother to not only be left to care for us alone, but to have to give us up as well.
She got off to a rocky start but Mummy supported the hell out of us, largely unassisted by my father. She put us through high school and college (I did my part to ease the burden by dropping out after one year of college), and even now that we're adults (on paper at least) she still insists on mothering us every chance she gets, and when she can't find any she creates them.
Because of Mummy's financial sitation ---> need to finish her first degree---> scholarship to Germany---> our family didn't live together until I was 11, when I insisted I wanted to move to my grandparents house so I could be with my sister whom I adored even though she HATED my guts. I am nothing if not an optimist and I was convinced if I were around more maybe she would see how awesome I thought she was and then surely she would love me.
That did not work out as planned, I just gave her the opportunity to hate me year round while I cried a lot and whined to anyone who would listen "T hates me!" For the first 4 of my 5 years of high school I tried very hard to make her love me, but eventually my constant pain over our shitty relationship overwhelmed me into indifference to my entire home situation.
In retrospect we all in that house had embattled relationships with each other, but by the time we were both in college I figured out that T didn't love me because she didn't think I loved her. So I decided to wear her down by showing her a ridiculous amount of love and adoration no matter how mean she was... and it worked. Now she is bar none my favourite person in the world, and I'm pretty certain I am hers.
It made me so happy to be able to say that to her because we've come such a long way. T and I did not grow up together. We are the products of an unfortunately typical Jamaican family dynamic. My father is a philanderer (we have an older brother born to another mother, plus a sister born between us - to an additional other mother) and a flake who left us when I was only three months old.
My mother could not afford childcare while she worked, so I was taken to live with my father's sister and her family of three boys and two girls, while my sister went to my grandparents who also housed my aunt and her son. We were both unplanned pregnancies, but completely loved and wanted and I cannot imagine how world wrenching it must have been for my mother to not only be left to care for us alone, but to have to give us up as well.
She got off to a rocky start but Mummy supported the hell out of us, largely unassisted by my father. She put us through high school and college (I did my part to ease the burden by dropping out after one year of college), and even now that we're adults (on paper at least) she still insists on mothering us every chance she gets, and when she can't find any she creates them.
Because of Mummy's financial sitation ---> need to finish her first degree---> scholarship to Germany---> our family didn't live together until I was 11, when I insisted I wanted to move to my grandparents house so I could be with my sister whom I adored even though she HATED my guts. I am nothing if not an optimist and I was convinced if I were around more maybe she would see how awesome I thought she was and then surely she would love me.
That did not work out as planned, I just gave her the opportunity to hate me year round while I cried a lot and whined to anyone who would listen "T hates me!" For the first 4 of my 5 years of high school I tried very hard to make her love me, but eventually my constant pain over our shitty relationship overwhelmed me into indifference to my entire home situation.
In retrospect we all in that house had embattled relationships with each other, but by the time we were both in college I figured out that T didn't love me because she didn't think I loved her. So I decided to wear her down by showing her a ridiculous amount of love and adoration no matter how mean she was... and it worked. Now she is bar none my favourite person in the world, and I'm pretty certain I am hers.
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