The Space Between, What's Wrong And Right, Is Where You'll Find Me Hiding, Waiting For You, The Space Between, Your Heart And Mine

--"The Space Between", Dave Matthews Band

Hearing Miss Frisson talk about her big sister Nora, how generous she is with her time and how she's always treated her younger sister as an equal, makes me jealous occasionally. The sincerity in her voice and the eagerness with which she tells me just how much she loves her sister puts Toby in an entirely class of person, as someone way better than myself. I don't think I've ever talked so lovingly of anyone in my family. In fact, I'm sure of it. I don't have the distinction of looking up to anyone in my family. I've never had an older sister, brother, or cousin to emulate. I'm pretty damn close in age to any relative that I get along with so I've never had this relationship of admiring somebody as a role model. Sufficed to say I've never had any notions of emulating my parents, but hearing her talk, I'm convinced I would have appreciated having an older sister, someone to go to for advice I could trust.

Brandy believes my reasons run much deeper than wanting somebody to confide in, though. Her and I have talked about my issues in length and, although she's not a licensed therapist or psychologist, some of her ideas make sense to me. She believes I harbor an unresolved fixation with the idea of sleeping with a sister. In much the same vein of an Oedipal complex, she thinks that from an early age I've had this desire for somebody I could be close with in every way, which manifested in an ongoing fascination with incestuous themes. All of it--all the weird behavior, the ease at which I drive people away, the self-destructive behavior--stems from the idea that there really is no one in the world I feel I can trust or depend on or love. Instead, I have become focused on the notion that had I had an older sister, I would have turned out fine. I would have had somebody in my own household that I could have come to in times of need, times of joy, and would been free to tell her everything that I was feeling like Toby is able to discuss anything with her two older sisters. More importantly, at least Brandy thinks for me, I would have had somebody who would have been able to express their feelings for me in a fashion that nobody in my immediate family has ever been able to do.

I don't buy into the complete theory, but it does explain a lot. Early on in my friendship with B., I've commented that she really felt like a younger sister. I always thought I said it aloud as a compliment to her, as a remark on how close I felt with her, to let her know she was appreciated. Now I see it could have been an affirmation directed back at me as a way to process my feelings for her. It's fairly illogical and twisted, but I had associated the feeling of having a younger sister to the feeling of being in love with someone, because I hadn't really experienced either at that point. Telling Breanne that I loved her like a sister was akin to my confessing to her that I was in love with her. The closest I can explain how those usually two separate ideas of love got twisted around one another is to point towards The Blue Lagoon. Like those castaways, sometimes you can mistake the intimacy that you have with a beloved sibling, that complete trust and feelings of joy, with the same sort of intimacy one has with a lover. Somewhere along the way I had broken down that wall, if it was ever up in the first place.

I think it's a real breakthrough that I've figured this much out. I've told various friends and relatives various pieces of where a lot of my odd behavior originates. I always thought I had a moderate case of being anti-social. Now I'm really mulling over the idea that I feel cheated somehow. It's like I have this idea that an older or younger sister I share everything with is the key to my having turned out well-adjusted. Yet, because I was denied that, I turned out the way I did. It's also the reason why I have such narrow criteria to the women I date. I'm not looking merely somebody to be a lover or a friend. It's like I'm looking for someone as close as family that I just happen to sleep with.

I admit, it's worrisome harboring such thoughts. I didn't want to admit to myself that these fantasies of sleeping with some imaginary sister had any part of my psyche. However, the more I've really poured over this idea and confided my thoughts on the subject with various parties, the more I see it's really been an idea I've had all along. I just never gave it voice before. I always thought it would mean I actually was the monster people thought me to be. Now I see that's not true. The root cause of this fetish is wanting to find love and there's nothing more universal that that. I guess sometime long ago I decided I wasn't ever really loved as a kid and that, if I had a sister, I could have been loved and I have really given out love freely in return.

I think that's always going to be my struggle, to realize that I'm never going to find that sisterly relationship in anyone and that I can't keep foisting that level on intimacy on people. I have to lose the idea that having a girlfriend or a wife is not a poor substitute to having a sister. Otherwise, I'm going to go through life being disappointed when I try to open to somebody and they don't immediately avail themselves to me... like I think my phantom sister would have.

I'll never have a sister and it's time I stop trying to pigeonhole woman I like into that role.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers