I have lost myself again.
How can it be, that I have lost myself yet once more? How can it come so soon?
Why do I lose myself so easily?
It is...difficult for me to bring this up. I can easily, almost casually, acknowledge that I once experienced relatively strong rivalry between my cousin and I when I found myself floundering because I had not expected to be pitted against her in such close proximity (in the same class), when I had never once felt the need to do so.
I overcame that hurdle, somewhat, with the unwitting help of my parents who will probably never realise what a huge favour they did for me when they told me that they did not expect academic excellence from me. I still struggle with this issue somewhat, but the worst is behind me.
There were days when I begrudged some higher power that I had been placed in the same class as my cousin, who, despite being new to the school and stranger to almost everybody, had a friend in the class with her. I was different. I was not acquainted with anybody in the class despite coming from the same school as most of the girls. I felt terribly, terribly lost.
My inability to socialise did not help. Friends were hard to come by for me, and I cling onto those I make. For me to be in a class full of eager strangers comfortable in a foreign environment nauseated me, frustrated me, terrified me. Why could I not be like them? Why must I be the only one suffocating under the curious gazes of strangers?
It had taken me three months to make my first friends in class, and by then my cousin had already established herself as one of the popular kids -- cheer-leading, exuberant personality, kind soul. I was the one at the back of the classroom eyeing everyone else and thinking to myself, "I can survive these two years without them. I don't need any friends."
(If I were in an American high school, I may be the kid who gets pushed into lockers, whose head is dunked in the toilet.)
I nearly had myself convinced. If I could not make friends, I will make do without them.
But I did find friendship eventually, and oh, what a magical feeling! I no longer dreaded school because I saw it as another day of dredging myself up from bed to study amongst strangers, not alone, yet lonely.
I have accepted that I do not make friends easily, but it is perhaps because of that that friendship, when given to me, is such an unbelievably precious gift.
I cannot thank my friends enough for their courage and will in pursuing me.
I found myself again, with friends, and a unique subject combination (Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Art) that never failed to remind me that I have a niche, I am irreplaceable, I am who I am, and I am going to be happy with that.
I now know and accept that I will never be like my cousin, and that I don't want to be her.
For half a year, I was content.
Then my sister was accepted into my school and the whole process started all over again, only this time, I have to contend with it both in school and at home, which is the entire day. It wears me down that I must contemplate such issues when I know with the rational part of myself that it is utterly irrational to do so. I cannot do anything, so I should just let it be.
But the thing about me is that I think too much sometimes, and I feel more than I think.
I never expected to react so strongly to my sister's enrolment into my school. I knew, logically, that my competitive streak was only going to get worse, but great gobbling geraniums, I never knew I could feel so lost, insignificant, useless, and unspectacular after she came.
It was a period of great adjustment for me. All my life I thought of my sister as "the one who is in St. Nick's" and "the one who is very smart but cannot be compared to me because we are graded by different standards in different schools". She was never "the one over there with long hair" or "the one who looks like me, but is prettier".
And then, all of a sudden, she was all that, and more. She was "the one who has more friends", "the one who is more popular", "the one who will get better grades", and, most recently, "the one who encroached upon my niche".
You must understand that my niche is something that I protect and guard jealously. For all my life I have always been the artistic one (or, well, the more artistic one of my siblings). There has been no one who has actively pursued art as I have. I can admit that my brother is a far better artist than I am, but that is largely due to the fact that I had learnt to draw from him, and that I had always admiring him and had no qualms admitting his brilliance. I have never once doubted that my brother was and is my superior in many areas, Science, Mathematics and art amongst them.
What I had never considered, was my sister. I had always thought of her as the one who is academically excellent, someone whom I have come to accept will always be my academic superior (despite some part of me trying very hard to deny this, wanting to claim that I am the smarter one). But after I accepted that, I learnt to build a niche area around myself to distinguish myself from her: art.
I am not the best art student, nor an excellent one. I am merely doing something I have great passion for, and I find peace and mental calm in the idea that there is only me in this, that there is no one to compete with, not my brother (who does not intend to pursue art), not my cousin, and most certainly not my sister.
Except, she joined the school's Photography Club this year.
I confess I expected her to join some uninspiring club like "Entre" (which attempts to nurture entrepreneurs) or something academic like "Biology Society". Photography was way out of left field, and it hit too close to home.
Suddenly I wasn't so unique anymore. My niche wasn't my niche anymore. It became "our niche" and I hated it.
Because I am an Art student, I used to be the only one in my family who had a...not claim, but a great stake in the lone DSLR camera in our household, but that's not true anymore. My sister will be using it weekly for her club's activities, and it sickens me that I have thought to sabotage her by demanding the use of the camera every club session (because I am certain my parents would side with me, as Art is not merely a club activity for me, but an examinable subject).
I can't help but feel dwarfed by her presence. Is it strange that an elder sister feels as if she is living in the shadow of her younger sister's greatness? It probably is; if I could change my sense of insignificance I would.
But I can't. All I can do is live with it.
I am known for my snark -- if one does not know me well enough I would come off as very mean. I have, over the past month and a half that my sister has been in my school, snarked at her for not knowing everything there is to know about my school -- simply because I was feeling inadequate and needed a means to prove my superiority, no matter how petty that means is.
When I compare myself with my sister, I fall short in nearly every aspect: I am not as beautiful, not as slim, not as smart, not as friendly, not as dedicated, not as confident. And that is where all my problems stem from, isn't it?
My self-esteem is not very well established; it flounders in the face of even the slightest of waves. What has taken months, years to build can be washed away with just one word.
I feel pathetic for it.
All my life I have lived under someone's shadow (except for the brief periods when, by fluke, I was admitted to both the GEP and one of the top schools). Their greatness overwhelms me, frightens me. I want to be somewhere not there, to bask in metaphorical sunlight so that I may spread my leaves and grow.
I found a piece of land of my own, and had begun to take root and grow, slowly because I was afraid to fail if I grew too quickly, afraid to learn that I had made the wrong decision about that piece of land and had to relocate my roots. I had found my niche when I took that step forward and applied for the Art selection test (which I had previously failed two years prior to then) and was accepted. Finally, I found somewhere unique. Some place I thought no one would encroach upon, especially not my academically brilliant sister.
Yet now my sister competes with me.
She has taken root beside me, or perhaps had grown elsewhere, but so quickly and strongly that her leaves now tower over mine, now that I am forced under her shadow. Again. Yet once more, I have to share with her.
I have shared many things with her: a house, a room, a bed, but this has come the closest to pulling me apart.
I had no say in the abovementioned, but I did have a say in my choice of subjects. I chose Art. I had thought that I could finally stand apart from her.
Not so, it turned out.
As if sharing a home, a bedroom and a bed wasn't enough, I now have to share a school and my facilities with her. I say "my" facilities because I believed them to be owned exclusively by the Art students, with occasional usage by the Photography Club's and Art Club's. I don't actually mind the Art Club using the art room much, though, because I know most of them.
But now that my sister's joined the Photography Club, I feel as if my sanctuary is being violated. No more a sanctuary, no more safe place.
There is nowhere to go where she will not be.
The world is closing in upon me, first my cousin, then my sister. What next? Will I implode upon myself?
I feel like yelling at her, "Why must you keep doing this? Why can't you leave me alone?"
But I think she wouldn't understand. This insane jealousy of my sanctuary is probably unique to me. The spaces once safe from her are now crowded with her. I see her image everywhere. Will I ever be free of her? Why is it that as I grow older, more independent, she seems to grow increasingly omnipresent?
She reminds me of all my shortcomings -- not beautiful enough, not smart enough, not sociable enough.
Why can't I just be?
Then I think, this is all in my head. All this competition, this need to have a safe place, is no more than a desire to stand out, to not be one of many, to not be constantly overshadowed. Have I reason to believe that I am? No, not really. I just do. Perhaps it's self-esteem issues, perhaps it's just me being unreasonably competitive.
Either way, it is through no fault of my sister's that she engages in activities she enjoys, joins a school which she believes will benefit her. Perhaps I should have done the same, transferred to some other school since this one now seems to be infested, crawling with family members whom I feel are walking right into my personal space.
It's all in my mind, surely, but it doesn't make it any easier to handle.
I wish there was someone there for me who will lend me their shoulder to cry on, who will understand when I say that I feel breathless, who will know what I mean when I say I suffocate.
I tell myself to be the better man, to not resent them for what they cannot help.
But I also think, why must I do this, when I too cannot help what I feel?
Then it all comes to me. It is not what I do to someone who deserves it that makes me a great person. It is what I do not do to someone who deserves it that does.
In this case, no one deserves anything. They do not deserve my resentment, neither do I deserve to feel crowded. But if I do not do anything, no one will suffer (save me, but then, what is one person in the grand scheme of things? And this sort of suffering may be no suffering at all next to the starving in Africa, Indonesia, etc.).
If no one (involved) ever comes to know of my efforts to keep from exploding, that is perhaps for the better, because I will not know what to do otherwise.
