Survivor's Guilt

I spent my life longing to be unrelatable; to push the envelope of the unorthodox; to reformulate the extraordinary. I would one day be a rock star, a poet, a writer, a legend. It's amazing how easily the term legendary is stretched and confined and unremarkably unconsidered. At the end of every day, I am my handicapped brother's sister. I fight for him. I long for his love. I yearn for closeness and normalcy with him and for him. It seems though, that the further I try to distance myself from his story, the further I become from myself. His story is mine and every detail of his life is an extension of my own.  This is the one part of my life I can't talk about without feeling ashamed and confused and heartbroken. It is, in fact, completely unrelatable. Now all I want is normalcy, to be able to talk about this part of me without shrinking and withering into the vastness of His life, His losses, and His heartache. I am survivor's guilt, aging, shattered, and powerless.