i thought this was a work thing, but apparently not. every day around 3pm i develop a headache. it's not a minor irritation or a stars-seeing mind-numbing roar, just a dull ache at the temples that sometimes runs along my hairline. i don't know what causes it, but i pop two ibuprofens at about 3:30 and my headache dissolves by 4pm.

see, i always try to outwit it and ride the storm. unfortunately, i'm a whimp so that doesn't work.

my lil sis leaves for london in a few days. she just got back in town from a summer job in cooperstown ny. the thing is, she's become this irritating obnoxious little bitch in the two months since she left. i'm not sure if this is how she always was and i didn't realize it cause i was never around and she was sick so people excused her OR she was ruined forever by upstate NY.

i'm gonna assume it's the former, though i've heard some nasty deliverance-esque stories about the rugged ny uplands.

so, i'm trying to reconcile how irritating she is with the fact that she's supposed to be my favorite sister and she's a year and a half into her double lung transplant and she's leaving for a semester in london and she's 22 and no one thought she'd live to see 12. i'm trying to be fair and open and accept that she's not the poor little sick girl anymore and that it's okay to not like her all the time.

no one talks about that. about what happens after deathly ill becomes somewhat healthy (albeit with about a thousand different medications to consume per day). no one tells you how to handle the guilt of actually thinking in your head "i don't like you" when your whole life it's been "you're spoiled, but it's okay cause you don't get to live as long as i do and i'm the one who's got it easy."

does this all sound horrible? i know how to have a terminally ill sister, but i have no fucking clue how to have one that can flit off to london while reminding you that you owe her $30 for some stupid thing even though you spent your childhood taking care of her and protecting her and putting yourself on the backburner so she could have a taste of normality. who tells you how to deal with a girl who was once given attention because she was the "sick child" and who has grown into an attention-starved monster now that she's not. how do you reconcile that you want her to be happy and experience everything and have the world on a platter cause she's not supposed to be alive with damn, this girl is selfish and self centered and self obsessed?

i'll be over this soon. let's just hope i don't lose it between now and her departure. maybe a few months in london will humble her. i seriously doubt it.