When a photograph hurts.

It's hard to know where to start with this post. So many emotions tied to this photograph.

It is that of my younger sister. 11 months, 19 days younger. Although for those 19 days once a year, we are the same age.
But we couldn't be any more different.

She's materialistic, I'm not.
She's polished, I'm not.
She has a career, I don't.
She has a closet full of wicked expensive clothes, I don't.
She prefers caviar and champagne, I like wine and damn good cheese.
She is living a whirlwind of a social life. Mine consists of the grocery store and back.

So you get where I'm going with this...

But this picture, this one breaks my heart. This is the little sister I used to know when we were pre & teens. The vulnerable one, the one that followed me everywhere. The one I shared a bedroom and secrets with.
The one, when I look at this picture, I miss so very much.
The one that buried my little sister in favour of status, labels and public persona.
She wouldn't be caught dead looking like that in her every day life. ( she's on vacation and this is the only 'natural' one of her)

I look like this. Every day. Complete with the 'gym hair' you see.

I have two other sisters and a mother who read this blog. Well, hit and miss. They drop in once in a while. Maybe they won't see this post. They will, however, allow to feel what I do as it belongs to me but they will probably disagree. They see her, know her quite differently than I.
But they were not there beside us, in our younger days when we were inseparable. When we went to high school together both with glasses, both with acne. Both bullied. But I had the tougher skin. I fought back, she hid, she cried, I did my best to sooth the hurts.

These days our conversations are done via email, sometimes months pass before I hear from her. And it's usually something she wants me to do for her, or an impersonal forward.
A couple of months ago I sent her an email with the link to a short story I had written and had published. Actually I sent it to her three times, the first two she couldn't access. Finally I sent her the .doc.
She's yet to comment.

I have photographs that are being published soon, I won't be sharing them with her.

While I was never after accolades, I was seeking acknowledgment.
I'm not setting myself up for that type of hurt again. My thick skin was back in my earlier days. It's thinned out somewhat over the years.
Yeah...been there, done that, finished with the T-Shirt.

Yet I look at this picture of her and I tear up every time. I want to crawl inside that photograph, sit down with her in the sand and laugh like we used to. Be carefree without her having to be 'on' or tell me what labels she's wearing. I want the kind of full body hugs close sisters give each other. Not the french 'air' kisses I get when I see her. ( once a year, I live across the country )

This picture hurts.
Deep.

But I will print it out and put it where I can see it every day. It is someone I used to know a long time ago and she's right there, in that picture.

With all my heart, I miss my baby sister.
And she'll never know.