PonderEthereal

When I was young and still living with my mom, I was very responsible for my little sister. When we walked to school, I had to keep the key and make sure to walk home with her. When we got home, I started dinner. When we went to school, I made sure she had what she needed and got to where she needed to be. “Carrie, go with her.” mom would tell me. Although she was awfully smart, she was a little absent minded and could get side tracked or confused and she wasn’t street smart at all. I was her street smarter older sister and that translated to caretaker-away-from-mom.

When she went to college, she came and stayed with me for a little while before she had to be there. I hadn’t seen her in several years and we’d been living apart for quite some time - she with mom and I with dad and on my own. At the end of her visit, I drove her and dropped her off at her new college with all of her worldly possessions to take up residence in her new dorm. She was the first one there. I felt really bad for dropping her off. I felt like I was leaving a defenseless child on her own. In retrospect, I can peg those feelings as being VERY much the same way I felt when I left Ethan at his first day of his new first grade class. They were the feelings of a parent leaving a child who they have been dedicated to protecting to do a difficult thing on their own.

For years, when I’ve had dreams of catastrophes or surviving monsters, I usually was not only responsible for myself but my sister as well. In all of the dreams, I would have to make sure that I, anyone with me ANRyan my little sister got away and survived. It was just kinda a given that she showed up in dream after dream that way until - well, recently. And I never really thought much of it because it was SUCH a given and so ‘normal’ for me. But then the other day, a strange thing happened. I had a dream of surviving something. But rather than needing to save my sister, it was Ethan.

I’ve always seen similarities in Ethan and my sister. Ethan has the same gentle, kind, spirit center that she always had. He has the blond hair, fair skin and blue eyes like her and when he looks at you with that pure spirit through those eyes, I see my sister. So I always assumed that because they were so similar, I was just seeing my sister there… or something. But again, it was so common that I really never gave it much thought. But once it changed and it was Ethan there instead of my sister, I saw it quite differently.

For so many years, I WAS my sister’s mother. Maybe not her only one - but I was put into that position and I grew the same protective feelings for her that a mom would have. She’s grown up now and I’m a real mom now and maybe it took 7 years but it’s like something in my head clicked somewhere and something somewhere has decided that she no longer needs my protection. And I don’t know why it was that Ethan didn’t replace her much sooner. Maybe it was that I didn’t feel like I was in a position to protect him before or maybe his 7 years just couldn’t overcome the deep impressions left by years of pattern and habit.

It’s funny though. I feel more whole now having had a dream sequence with Ethan rather than her. It’s like I don’t have to worry for her anymore and I feel like I can be more successful taking care of Ethan. I feel like things that I didn’t realize were askance are now righted.