Ego and Super Ego

It is funny how we can change so much in such a short period of time. Small things can really have a great impact on our own self perception. Over the last few months, I have begun to notice the many disparities between who I am, who other perceive me to be and who I would like to be. A woman I worked with once and who I credit a great deal of my courage to once said "if only you could see yourself as other do." I think this is sage advice, think about what those who love you see in you, pretty astonishing how different our own perception can be.

I would like to have some closure with my sister. It is a numb hole that I need to name. The detective is not hopeful, he has assured us that he will do whatever he can to find out what happened. This of course, brings some comfort in that someone else cares about her. Right now, I am in this place where I need to grieve but can't. I haven't really talked to very many people about this and when I have, it is so surreal, like I am out of body. The thought that I will never be able to tell her that I love her is not real, it doesn't fit. I fear that those who know about this think me callous because I have no real emotion. This being said, there are times when it takes me by surprise, the phrase "The Lord shall preserve me from all evil. Yea, it is even He that shall keep my soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth and forever more" from psalm 121 is the one that did it for me last but even then it was a moment of tearful indiscretion. I fear the wave that I know is coming, the one that will knock me on my ass. What to do then? What if it doesn't happen? I know that this is a bizarre stream of conscience missive but well, that is who I am.

Emillie, you were my first playmate. We endured the grandmother moments, the Herb moments, the crazy "other" moments. Indiana, St. Joe, Leavenworth summers in the museum, OCTA conventions with Mom, fighting, playing dress up and creating plays. Turning an antique lace table cloth and a really ugly old dress into what was really a remarkable Elizabethan costume. You know many of my secrets and have kept them well. The injuries and heartaches, bad music lessons and shitty teachers. The almost irreparable damage of First Baptist Church, sharing cigarettes and being generally awful to each other. Here is what I see in you my dear, a beautiful, self-sacrificing person who was more sensitive than what was acceptable in our realm. I don't blame you for the shit in high school, I know that you did not feel included in the rest of the family (don't worry, that is a genetic trait, I never did/do either), you dealt with a fowl situation in the only way that you knew how. I am sorry that I wasn't more supportive of your positive attributes and am making efforts to rectify that behavior with my own daughters.

Really, the other stuff just starts to fall away. It is really about who you were in essence. There is a line that I am horribly going to mis-quote in the movie American Beauty something to the effect that there are things that are so beautiful in the world that you can hardly comprehend them (so badly mis-quoted that I couldn't even put quotes around it), you were one of those people who seemed to always look for that, I think the issue was with the rest of us, you saw us for who we really were at essence. One thing that I remember from your childhood was your ability to empathize with anyone, that is not a quality that is easily managed in our families world of sarcasm. The rest of the shit is in consequential really, who cares about the bs.

Two times someone pointed out how much you wanted to have a connection to us, once at the mission trip to Anadarko, OK when you broke down and cried and the other was by Father Brendan at my wedding. I get it now, Emillie, I am sorry that I didn't know what to say at the time. I am sorry that our last experiences were so inconsequential. In the movie of my life, this is not how it goes. You know how it ends in my head... You know me too well, the pretty house, the smiling family all together, for me it is the fabled fake picture perfect existence (funny how my professional life has become a way to fashion those moments perfect liturgy, perfect, house, prefect singing, perfectly artificial.) For once I should ask you, how would you have it end?