Anyone who's been around me long enough to get drawn into a conversation with me lately has been regaled about my new-found adoration of the show Supernatural. Hilarious, well written, and full of eye-candy - it's well worth the watch.
Premise: A pair of brothers, driving across the continent hunting ghost and demons and monsters - their personalities clash fantastically, and the rainbow of characters and adventures they encounter along the way just make the experience a joy.
Though perversely backwards, Sam's striking out from home and his father's expectations is very much like my sister. And I, clinging doggedly to my family and placing respect of my parents above most any other type of behavior - though it may irk and chafe me - am similar to Dean.
My sister and I were raised travelling, always - never with other children as companions for long, never with solid connections to anyone but the most immediate of family. We had tenuous relationships with cousins and passing friends in the long line of homes, but never anyone solidly there our whole lives, except each other.
We fought, we shouted, we commiserated, we strained - and yet, we were always there for one another. Two very different little girls - trapped together and wishing to get away, but simultaneously clinging to each another as if our lives depended on it. Because without one another, we were alone.
Once we got to the States and settled, all of that changed. We found our clicks, we found the people that made our lives make sense and made our hearts beat one skip happier. And while we continued to fight, we no longer clung to one another. We had very different outlooks on life, and we didn't see the value in keeping the other as close as she'd been in our previous life.
I do not hesitate to admit that, in a large part, this was my choice. I was tired of being lumped in with my sister, of constantly being bound to her. I wanted my freedom and to get away - to relinquish the responsibility of being an older sister. I felt like I'd been one for too long, and now I wanted to do my own thing.
So for any feelings of dismissal or lack of caring that she may have felt, I declare myself completely and utterly, shamefully guilty.
And when I went away to college, that only made it worse. While I gained my freedom for a time and began to change more quickly than ever before, she was stuck where she'd been for so long. Stifled and overwhelmed by parents tutting and worrying about their babes leaving the nest, she was quashed and, ever the more rebellious child, made a dash for her freedom whenever she could. She rebelled against the norms of going to college, partially because she didn't know where she wanted to go, and also because she didn't see the value of it in her life. So, after a semester or two, she dropped out and worked for a while.
After a long march of rebellious and difficult years, she's finally moved down to Florida with her boyfriend, and is making a life for herself there.
I certainly noticed our drift apart, and some of the initial ramifications, when I came back from college the first few times. When I was overseas for a few months, I vowed to change and become a better big sister to her. Obviously, I didn't have the staying power or patience to do that.
And again, the further she drifted, the more I judged and the more I disapproved. And the less patience I had - the less time I took.
I let my own frustrations and needs get in the way of being a good older sister - of looking out for her and letting her know how much I love her. And from the rotten seeds that I have sown, I now have a dying, if not dead, relationship with a woman who was once my little sister.
The value and hard work of the brothers really strikes me - though they fight and have such opposing personalities, they stick together. Because they'd be lost without the other.
I swear my heart shatters a little, every time Dean says that he'll always be there and look out for Sam. He's the older sibling that, to my regret, I never was. He loved his brother, through and through, and would do anything for him.
I wasn't that sister, and fear that it is too late for me to ever truly become so.
