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Mytwenty-one, a few e, and after I had just moved to another continent halfway around the world, with my then partner

Though I was the youngest, so to return home, to take care of un, I returned to file her application for disability and tothat time I appealed to my oldest sister for help with paperwork and tasks, but she didn’t respond with any tangible action She didn’t help She left

There always seemed to be a fundamental disconnect in how my oldest sister and I communicated I experienced this particularly when it cas I wanted for myself, independent of my family

As we sat eating dinner at an Egyptian café in Bangkok, on our trip celebrating her post-chemo recovery, I told her, “I want to be a writer”

She responded, “I think you make a really excellent consultant”

It was a typical response, indicative of the quality of our corad school, she wasn’t supportive She told me horror stories instead, about hoas a path to nowhere, with professorship jobs iet It was never what I had wanted—to be warned of the horrors, rather than supported in what I wanted for myself

Years later, when I decided I’d done asto do, I replicated , in favor of going to graduate school ency trips hoered over this choice, in return

“I need you to fly ho related to my mother, the weekend before I needed to take the GRE I knew doing so would throw me off balance, and I wanted, for once, to stay focused on my future

?

??I can’t,” I told her I’d reached the point where I was no longer willing or able to continue returning hoize No one who hadn’t been there when I was growing up with e They had no idea what I’d been through

Her response was to get angry, to berateno

My oldest sister and I thought of ourselves as the “healthy” ones, at the ti absented herself from any family responsibilities If eitherresponsibilities, it fell upon the other party to pick up the slack

“I just feel so alone,” she complained bitterly toShe, too, had left me alone