My cards of misfortune

As I wrote yesterday, my weekend was filled with a lot of emotions. However, behind those emotions was a revelation, a realization, that I’m actually an adult. This has been a fact for some years now, however, it wasn’t a fact I had entirely come to terms with.

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During one of my conversations with my brother, I got vulnerable and let him in on how I felt about being distant from my other siblings. This distance has, over time, become an ache that I’ve managed to soothe with my indifference and somewhat busy life.

For those who may or may not know, I’m the last of 8 children; 6 brothers and 1 sister. However, out of our large number, I’m only in constant conversation with 2 of my siblings. Owing to the fact that my childhood was filled with a lot of love and affection from my older siblings, becoming an adult who’s somewhat estranged from them seems quite strange.

For the longest while, I’d tried to understand why they couldn’t just treat me with even the slightest amount of respect and this weekend, my brother made me understand why. The simple reason is that I’m female.

I always believed that I came from a modern family but over the past few years, my older siblings made it pretty obvious that my place has always and will always be beneath them. They made it obvious in the things they did and the things they said. I was not meant to surpass them or speak up for myself in any way.

This was strange because my parents didn’t raise me to see myself as less than my brothers. On the contrary, I felt like I was raised to see them as either my equals or my helpers. It was never a competition for me until I matured and noticed just how little they saw me.

They said things and expected me to keep my opinions to myself because they’re male and older so by virtue of that I’m in no position to have a say. And because I’m no pushover, I let my voice be heard loud, clear and aggressively until they had had enough.

There were instances where my brothers said things that were outrightly wrong and I’d call them out on it just to be labelled as “a spoiled brat”. I got treated badly by their spouses and was expected to suck it up. The insults just couldn’t stop coming so I moved away.

Thankfully, life has been kind to me, kind enough that I’ve never had a reason to ask for help from any of them but on some days I just wonder why they can’t just love me like they used to, why they can’t see me for the complete human I am and respect me.

To preserve whatever dignity I have, I’m distant. I’ve stepped away from their environment, which includes my parents, and forged ahead with an uncertain life in uncertain places. I imagine my life being easier if I could simply go home to my parents and make things work but I’d only just receive more insults.

This realization has taken a huge toll on me these past few days and I’ve felt emotionally weakened by it but I think writing it out has helped. I’ll generally keep being as distant and indifferent as I can, and look forward to the day I finally get to achieve some of my dreams.