Writing out a seemingly endless flow of Mim memories, it strikes me again & again how somewhat similar we were on certain levels, but that our core differences were far greater, far deeper.
Chief among them, without question - our attitude toward happiness. Mim believed that the traditional sense of happiness wasn't for her. Yes, she literally said it, explaining why what most of us pursued in life was of little interest to her. It was certainly underscored by her belief that the more you had, the more you could lose; that money was the enemy of imagination & creativity.
As I've written about Mim, about her ability to read people, to glean their most treasured interests, it occurred to me that she had to have known what I was like from the time I was in the cradle - a well-grounded optimist who loved life.
It was... unusual, being me & growing up with such a dark-spirited idol like Mim. She was, for all of my childhood & well into my twenties, my end-all & be-all. If a fairy had waved her magic wand & gave me just one wish, it would have been to be just like Mim. Seriously.
Being so different from my big sis, yet adoring her as I did - to the point of attributing everything good I did to her influence - distracted me from maturing.
That delay turned out to be blessing. Mim's influence didn't stunt my growth, simply slowed it down. It helped me grow the deep roots needed to do the things that called & call out for me to do.
It doesn't seem fair. While little if anything I did seemed to make Mim's life richer, even my darkest experiences of her deepened my wild love of relationship - with her, with others, with myself, with the Divine. Through her, I received the gift of experiencing relationship as a vibrant concept, a glorious ideal, more than person to person.
Some magnolias take up to 20 years before their first bloom. Nothing is wrong, there isn't anything a gardener can do to rush their appearance. To quote my O Best Beloved, it takes as long as it takes.
Writing out memory after memory, am aware of how many incredible things I did with Mim, yet they never seemed to create for her the connections they forged for me. That makes me sad. Looking back, knowing how Mim talked about herself to the end, it seems that each were stand-alone moments to her, not part of a constantly expanding integrated whole. That's all conjecture on my part, but it is how it feels.
For me, Mim was great soil in which to be rooted. For Mim - who knows?
Sometimes, opposites attract. Not always. And sometimes they do for one & not the other. My birth faith has a beautiful teaching about how even in unhappy marriages, a partner can still be developing a love of marriage as an ideal. There doesn't have to be a perfect union for spiritual growth. I hope Mim felt nurtured by our relationship. It didn't feel that way, but who knows. I haven't a doubt that having her as my sister, with all the wonders & challenges, helped plant me in a good place, blooming like crazy!
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