My sister, my best friend in the world, broke up with a longtime (about 10-year) boyfriend) about six months ago. In that time, I’ve tried to take every single call, because I know what it’s like to feel like that —or so I thought. A couple of months ago, I started gently pushing her to pull herself out of it, try to not be sad and dire and pretty much get over it. I had conversations with my mother about how she needed to help herself out. It became a running joke when my phone rang that it was she, and she had seen a pony, and oh how ponies hurt…:smack: I was losing patience, and even though she would call me to thank me for listening to her and supporting her, I found my well of empathy draining. I have a husband, a child, and a really demanding job. I could only stand it so much, so I started to ignore my phone when I would see it was her, because I assumed it’s be a long, depressing call and I had things to do.
I’m consistently back-handed by my arrogance.
I’m home sick with pinkeye today, and I’m browsing the web when I run across an interview with one of my all-time favorite bands, Fleetwood Mac. In it, Lindsay Buckingham talks about writing, and so I drift over to youtube to listen to some old tracks. Then I ran across this. For those of you that don’t know, Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks dated when they were young, joined FM, and then proceeded to go through a pretty spectacularly bad breakup while still in the band together. About thirty-so years later, here they are, mature adults that recognized they loved each other and it’s still bittersweet. Who doesn’t want that sort of resolution?
Damn it, I’m going to have more patience with my sister. Even 13 years later and happily married, the thought of how it felt to lose that first real love can still make me teary, and this was her first real love.