I am sorry sister

Just in case you blinked, or have been on Nibiru for the past few months, my last post was of course an April fool, originally published in the village newsletter that I edit, and therefore familiar to those around the village. I was hoping that the local paper would publish it last Thursday, as it is not that often that April Fools Day falls on the day in which the paper is published, and I at least, thought it was a brilliant opportunity to inject some humour into what have recently been dark an dismal times. They could have really gone to town and called the paper for one week only, The Porking Advertiser with a pigture of a pig alongside the title, but for reasons best known to themselves, they chose not to use the story that I handed to them on a plate. Maybe it was not PC enough and they were afraid that the Council would not like it ? I will never know, but cannot help feeling that a wonderful opportunity has been lost. I am not the only one around our village who thinks so. Still, it is up to them ...

Unfortunately this morning I have more pressing things on my mind. At 11.45 last night, Coran and I were just drifing off to sleep when the phone rang. The answerphone picked it up and as half expected, and half dreaded, it was my sister. She told us that she ha lost our number, and we had no intention of giving it to her, so I don't know where she got it from, I can only assume that she found it in an old address book or something. Anyway, five minutes later she rang again, annoyingly just as I was drifing off to sleep again, and this time she left a rather long message. The gist of it is basically that she misses us and is desperate to see and/or speak to us - hopefully this evening when she claims she is free (while at the same time informing us that her ex boyfriend is coming round - which hardly makes her free). Given hers and our history, I do not know what to do. I know what I want to do - ignore her and not call, but the guilt is always there gnawing away in the background.

She suffers from scizophrenia and has done for the past 20 odd years. Coran and I both find it incredilbly hard to deal with someone who is so needy and seems oblivious to our needs - ringing at all hours of the day and night, expecting us to drop everything to help her out, sucking up to us one minute and abusing us the next. She says she cannot help it and it is part of her illness, but I think this is rubbish. I am prepared to concede that some it may be that, but she was brought up to know right from wrong and to understand how to treat people to get people on your side, and with us, I am sad to say she is going about it in completely the wrong way. Understand that I have had over 20 years of this, and Coran 13.

My brother has more or less cut off contact with her, and for the past year or so, to all intents and purposes, so have we. It breaks my heart to do this, but I really do not think that we have a choice. Her attitude has driven her away, for all of the reasons stated above and a lot, lot more. I know that this is not all about her though, btu also about me and my inabilty to cope with and accept her situation. I miss the sister I grew up and loved so dearly, before Coran came along, she was the best friend I ever had, but I know that I will never get her back. It may not be fair to punish her for my own inabilty to deal with things, but sometimes it is the only way - something that even Mum realised in the end, for my sister used and abused her too, and my brother. I am sorry then sister, but for the moment at least, I cannot have you in my life, causing disruption and mayhem and giving me grief and stress, I can no longer live like that. She is not despetate to see us anyway, I know her, she is lonely as her other so called friends have tired of her, and so she thinks that she can drain our energy instead of someone else's. There might be some truth in all those vampire stories after all ...