Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!
And it was actually a pretty quiet Sunday. Considering how busy the past few weeks have been, I’m kind of learning to value quiet, sometimes. Sabby says she likes me to be doing useful stuff, but sometimes it’s useful to just sit and think. I think so, anyway. Or maybe read manga, or something else that’s quiet.
What happened on Friday has really made me think. You know, with Katie.
I don’t really think of myself as anything special, you know. I’m not. I’m just Lily. Your favorite seventeen your old, half-Japanese girl with an unhealthy love of chocolate. I’m not perfect. You know I’m not perfect. My flaws are actually related to my greatest strengths, don’t you think?
But I’ve never thought about how I relate to my sisters. To me, they’re just sisters, you know? I don’t mean just sisters, but… just sisters. It’s not like I spend all my time thinking about them or wanting to be around them or anything, and it’s not even like they don’t annoy the heck out of me sometimes, like they did in Japan (I understand what they were doing, and it still annoys me just a bit). And it’s not like I don’t annoy them sometimes. Like when Beth got upset that I don’t include her in anything (I hope that’s put to rest for good now, Japan is being included in a lot of things). But they’re my sisters. I love them and I don’t know how I could not love them. They’re… my sisters. It’s just how I am.
But Katie was acting like it’s kind of a superpower in a sense. Do they not see their sisters that way? Do they not love people who come along and need to be loved? Why is it so out of the ordinary to love your sisters? She thought so highly of that she asked me to include her baby. Her baby, that’s not even two weeks old yet.
I don’t understand why this is so special.
But I have to admit it probably kind of is. I mean, Sabby said that Beth isn’t like that. I’d have to agree, even though I hate to agree. She’s not. She does love her friends, and she loves me too, but she’s very guarded with her heart. She doesn’t let people in easily and it really hurts her when she does and they violate her trust. I think she’s very fond of Diana and Crystal – they’re her best friends, like Liz is my best friend, and they’re my little sisters, like Beth is. But the rest of them? She accepts them, but I don’t think she really loves them. Maybe she does! But I don’t think she does. Ai is my cousin, not hers. Rebecca is my half-sister, not hers. She likes them, but they’re not family.
Maybe I should be more guarded with my heart. Maybe I’ll get hurt someday, and maybe it will hurt more.
But I don’t know how I can be anything other than Lily. And would you love me less if I were any different?
I often wonder if the group chat would stay together if it weren’t for me. Maybe it would. I’m not saying it out of ego. But there’s so many different groups of girls, and they all revolve around me. Ai is my cousin, and her friends are her friends. Rebecca is my half sister, and her friends are her friends. Would, say, Chelsi and Minami ever meet and talk and get to know each other if I wasn’t around? I’d guess… no. Not at all. So there are at least three distinct groups of friends who all only have me as their common denominator.
But they still get on zoom and chitter and chatter and talk about things and play games and share photos and videos. They don’t need me. And yet… there they all are.
You might ask how Emiko and Robert got along on the trip to Japan. Well, apart from the flight, we didn’t see a whole lot of Robert. He did take her aside during the flight and chat with her in low voices, and while she didn’t look happy, she nodded and they didn’t say anything more to each other. I asked her how she felt about him being there and she said “I have a husband. Other than you, he’s a complete stranger, and I don’t know him. He told me that he understands he hurt me and if he’d known, he would not have let me struggle as much as I did.” She sniffled, and said “we both made mistakes. I could have sought him out. I didn’t. So we agreed to let the past be in the past. We both have our families now, we both have you, and that has to be enough.”
They’re not friends though.
I don’t expect them to be.
I have a family. I don’t need them to be friends for my sake. I just need them to stay off of each others’ throats. And I think that’s not a problem.
I didn’t ask Robert. I didn’t feel I needed to.
Anyway, as I said, a pretty quiet day. Dave promised to grill when the temperature stops being so dang hot. I can’t wait, I love Dave’s grilling.