Photo by Liz Breygel on Unsplash

Eyeshadow

My sisters, softness, and things that are real.

I have gotten better at my makeup. I realized that patience is key, and that is why I sucked at it for so long. I am not a patient person.

You have to stand there and blend blend blend. My mind floats to other things I could be doing. I usually multi-task:
Apply eyebrow gel so it can dry,
Apply concealer so it can start to dry,
Eyelash glue at the beginning because it takes the longest,
And then, start the eyeshadow.

I like makeup but I don’t like feeling like it’s a requirement. Like somehow I failed at being a woman because I don’t spend hours on it. I have gotten good at speeding through it, sometimes only taking 10 minutes. It’s a slow ritual that I don’t value enough.

My older sister has always been glamourous. She has freckles and a gap and always looked put together. Big earrings, matching necklace, the works. I liked getting dirty and climbing trees. I couldn’t sit still long enough for most things. In high school, she often helped me with my hair or picking out clothes. She waited eagerly for me to turn 21. We’re exactly 10 years apart. When I was old enough to go out with her and her friends, I think I was a bit of a letdown.

Reader, I am awkward.

Or, I was more so when I was 22. I tried hard to be outgoing, to mirror her mannerisms in the club, and to want to be there under the dim lights. There was a certain expectation of “Posting up”. Being at the club to be seen more than to party. Slight dance moves, “pretty girl” dance moves, were what was expected. But I wanted to go all out. I quickly learned that standing anywhere near the dancefloor meant some guy would sidle up to you and expect you to grind your ass on his dick. I got good at dancing away, turning around, and smiling BIG so you don’t offend them.

I hated it.

(The only time this felt good was this Halloween when a masc queer woman made eye contact with me before sliding behind me while I danced. Men have always felt less safe to me.)

I moved into that apartment with roommates and my younger sister took my place in going out. I admire their friendship. Their matching energy and closeness.
My younger sister looks more like my older sister. Light skinned and with my eyes. No gap like my dad’s. I look more like my mother than anything.
She was always small and screaming about something. I think this was her right as the youngest of 11 children. I often pushed her away as a playmate, and of course, that guilt eats at me years later.
But, I know that she is ok now.

My nightmares tell me differently. I can’t go into detail because it is too much. But I fail to protect her from the same fate as me, and it’s ongoing and no one will listen. The dream used to just happen without my saying anything, but I’ve gotten better at arguing in them. Screaming at my family to see what I see.

It shakes me up and leaves me awake, trying to think of anything else. The ghost of my trauma is something that will always be with me. Sometimes it likes to make itself loud and known. When I visit my mom, it’s there. The reminder. Everyone seems to tiptoe around me: The Sibling Who Doesn’t Come Around. But I had to leave that city for my own peace of mind.

The real world is less difficult than those dreams. I can speak up here, and actively avoid triggering events. Sometimes my hypervigilance bites me in the ass. Like some sort of large cat waiting to pounce on anything I read as disrespect or unwanted attention. I’ve been voiceless for so long and I don’t want to lose that again. I want to clearly say what I want, even though what I want is so much.

It’s 4 am and I am texting Moon Girl. I tell her about my nightmare. I send her memes. It’s cozy and I feel safe in the darkness of the early morning. That part of the day that feels like it exists between death and life: not quite real and full of secrets and promises.

I say things like, “If there’s a perfect universe.” and I open up about my wants. She is nearly always at the center of them. It feels good to know how to adjust and approach the future. I want to take people at their word, hear a boundary once, and not have to have anyone repeat it to me again. Always trying to give what I was never given in this way. To offer every facet of love I have learned about and was denied.

My body, of course, riots at anything less than forgetting where she and I end and begin. Anything less than listening to her breaths deepens while she falls asleep, or writing acres of words about how she makes me feel. I am lucky to feel so much so intensely. I am lucky that this year happened. To receive softness in the form of encouragement.

What is real and what remains is a home instead of a hole in the shape of her in my chest. There are many kinds of love in this world, and I don’t want my sadness at losing one form of it to jeopardize it taking another. To come out of a tumultuous year as friends, with my hair still sizzling on the ends from the fires, from the day a comet hit me, would be amazing.

There’s a TikTok (Of course!) about why it’s harder to get over short-term relationships as opposed to the longer ones.

“You’ve probably already mourned the long-term relationship in some way. You’ve probably already tried things and seen that person in every light and situation. In short term relationships or situationships, you don’t have that chance to do it all. To see what they’re like in relationship settings, and they don’t see all of you.”

It’s fitting. My Libra friend and I rarely talked after it all ended. I was heartbroken and mourned so many things. Not being able to be called his girlfriend, no real dates, etc. To look at us now, sending each other memes and trusting each other with drunk thoughts about life, is astounding.

For now, I’ll simply wait. I don’t want to sweep my feelings away while they are still scalding my fingertips, leaving me breathless and wanting. They will simmer down when they are ready to be snuffed out. But the smoke will always be there.