I wanted to write a grand old post of what fun this weekend of Blues Fest, Food Fest & Fleet Fest was, but instead I am morose for various reasons.

Chief of them being the sad, sad episode of House. So silly to be sad about a T.V. show but I can't abide death anymore. I wish I could get to a more peaceful place about death, like I was in college. For there, I lived every moment for what it was worth, I was truly that prepared to die young. (Gosh - how v. morbid).

There was such indescribable joy in just living and experiencing when things were bright and new, adventures were always round the corner and knowing for a certainty that it wouldn't last.
I was such a fatalist that I thought I would either die of too much joy or I would grow away.

I want to reclaim that part of me. The part of me that took such joy from living.

But

I am struggling with what I can only describe as a deviant form of survivor's guilt.
I am so thankful for the hopes that have been granted and for the joy there is in knowing that my sister is alive and well.
But I wish desperately that she was living a different life.
One that didn't involve hardships of any form, and where she could ...
I guess what I wish is that she was living my life.
Where she could have made different choices that defied pressure, where she wasn't so complacent in having others arrange her life, where she could break away from relying so much...
My v.wise friend A.D. says that what I wish for her is not so that she was living my life, but that she was me.
Or in a perverse way, that her diseases were mine.
Because, in my head, I feel that I would have been more able to deal with it, perhaps? Or that a younger sibling is still too v. young to experience such adult episodes.

The Boy says I am too greedy.
That I should be thankful for the mercies of God. That while I push for her to reclaim her life and to make inroads into her future, I forget that a couple of months ago, I was praying desperately and would have given anything to see her sit silently at home, twiddling her thumbs.

He is right. I am so thankful that she is in remission.

Now,
what I want badly to do is to somehow, physically, carry her through this.
But I can't. Because that's what happens when you are an adult - you have to let others live their lives, make their choices.
And I feel so helpless in not being able to do anything and not knowing what I can do except
'to be there for her', which is such an abstract bunch of words.
Or, at the very least, what I want is to stop pitying her so much (because that's where most of my guilt stems from - at the fact that I think my life is better than hers).