Upset with all the attention my new sister commanded, I was brimming with jealously. My father was more relaxed with her, of course. She was after all, just a baby. He could give her back to my mother when he was 'done' with her. However, with me, I was a reoccuring nightmare - I kept coming back.
One afternoon of poking my head through his newspaper, my father finally gave up with my shenanigans and blew his stack.
"You need to find something to do. Why don't you read a book?" he suggested.
"I have read them all," I pouted. I was extremely bored. Being grounded for the third time that week was weighing heavily upon my heart.
"Then play in the backyard," he glared at me. He tried to lift his paper but I pulled it back down.
"Come out and play with me," I smiled slyly. He shook his head and raised the paper anyway. I sighed dramatically and dragged my feet to the door and stopped to see if he was looking. He did not look my way. My heart sank into my stomach. I could not change his mind nor sway his attention and opened the sliding door with such dejection that even it creaked as if it were moaning.
I sat on the concrete step and pulled my knees up to my chin. I remember even back then how my emotions swung like a pendulum; from one extreme to the next. At one instance, I could be elated, tantalized with excitement, running with an over-exploding joy where the average outsider would have thought the circus came to town.
But equally so, I was also known to be affected by bouts of forlorn, depressed periods where nothing or no one could say or do anything to change my demeanor or negativity. It was if the pendulum had swung in the opposite direction and the momentum had no choice but to continue.
The gravitational pull could not be defied, no matter what.
The only healing agent was the passing of time -- to allow for the pendulum to swing back.
My father came out, rubbing his palms together, ready to play ball in the backyard. I raised my eyebrow in defiance and did not move.
"Come now, pupoo. I have finished my paper. Let's get some exercise and fresh air."
I did not move. My knees remained firmly planted under my chin and I did not utter one word. My heart was still heavy and I could not push myself to join him.
"You wanted me to join you and now here I am, so get up." There was a sense of urgency in his voice now.
I could not move. The heaviness was two-fold now. I am an afterthought, I told myself. When I asked him, he did not come. Now he comes when it pleases him, not me. I am nobody special. And I made myself believe it.
"GET UP!" he yelled now. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his hands on his hips.
Problem with our DNA was that we were both equally stubborn. I remained seated and did not budge. He stood for one solid minute, muttering under his breath nonsensical things and then finally brushed passed me and closed the creaky sliding door.
I remained in that fetal position until sunset when my mother pried me apart around dinner time. She did not say one word to me because she saw the anger in my eyes.
But she waited until the pendulum swung back.
And when it did, she took me in her arms and hugged me so hard that I finally let go ..... and smiled through my tears.
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