Desperate Times and Stupid measures

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Dear Diary, is what I wrote. It was to show an introduction in some way. Isn't that who I was writing to? Or what I was writing to? Just my diary and nobody else. That is until I realised that my mother likes to pry and go through my personal belongings on a daily basis, rumaging around, flipping through pages of this 'safe place' I like to write in because she does such a crappy job of getting any honest thoughts from me any other way. Let's face it, she doesn't know me. She never will know me because she is just another person on this earth I cannot trust. I can't even trust my own diary because even that little area of safety and privacy has too been invaded.

I'm not exactly sure how it was that I started smoking, but it was last month that I got found out. I got many lectures, of course, but not your usual kind. Mine were more guilt trips actually. It was never - 'Quit smoking, Aisling. It's bad for you', but it was always - 'Quit smoking, Aisling. It's bad for your sister.' There, you have my identifier. I am not Aisling. That is my name, sure. But you are more likely to know me as Hannah's sister. I am not told to do anything for my own good but for hers. Infact for all the world it seems as if I'm living two lives and my mother thinks my sister and I are the same person. Nothing I do seems to be on my own terms in her eyes. 'You shouldn't do that, Aisling. Don't you know that your sister is ill? Don't you know she is lying in a hospital bed? You know she will never have lungs like yours? Why throw them away? Why throw your health away? She would never have done it.' Of course I know. I think about it every day and I am reminded every day. Anytime somebody asks me a question, it is about her. The first thing somebody says to me when I meet them is 'how is your sister?' I would love to be able to say she is fine but that will not be happening anytime soon, unfortunatly.

But, for once I would just like for somebody to ask me how I am and really mean it.

My mother's use of emotional blackmail has actually made me smoke more. I don't even know why. Maybe it's to prove some sort of a point that I'm not even consiously aware of. I have been complaining for the last three months about head aches, asking her for a lift to the doctor. She says she is too busy with Hannah. You see, I am here to carry other people's burdens, to make them feel less tied down because they have had a long day.

Why should I give up smoking for my own health, right? It should be for my sister, not for me. Why complain out loud? It's not like it is important anyway. I could scream it from the rooftop and it would be thrown to the side. No matter how bad I'm ever feeling - I should forget about it because it isn't important. Not in comparison to Hannah. I am not going to go into detail about my sister's illness, that is not what I am here for. I care. She has been there, while I have been here. She has been there for more time than a nineteen year old should. Meanwhile I have been here, living without her, doing things she should be doing with me. Everytime I realise she can't go to a movie with me, or she can't go to a party with me, I die a little more inside and I'm desperate to stop this blackness from growing throughout me. It spreads like wild fire and burns me out. So I will continue to do the stupid things I do, I will continue looking for some sort of control in my life and some way to make it feel like my decisions are my own. I hope I find it. I will do anything to gain that power. All I want is to feel like it's up to me what I do, it's me who it will effect and nobody else should be a part of that.

Since I seem to be rather alone on this, all I need is control, to break free from this shadow I have been living in since I was a child. Have you ever felt like you have been pushed aside for your whole life and just wanted to make something of yourself? Something you could call your own, something you did and nobody else? Something you can be proud of.

Something they can all be proud of.