muzz

I just would like to know how I let this woman, this beautiful stunning intelligent long-legged cocoa-skinned spiteful jealous mean money-hungry woman, my cousin Muzz, how did I let her get to me again?!

Until last Friday Muzz and I had not spoken in 3 years. And I still don't know why. For some reason she has waged a one-woman crusade against me. Actually, there is a reason - jealousy.

Why didn't she know that I always looked up to her. She was the fun bright star, the shining fiery heart, she burnt bright and lit all of us up in her wake. That's how I choose to remember the childhood I shared with Muzz and our 4 other siblings combined.

Perhaps what I am ignoring is the sensation of being burnt, of Muzz's sparkler burning me at the edges, of her brightness blinding me to her faults. I saw her meanness. But I never thought she would use it against me. Not so directly. Not so vehemently. I knew she dug a little bit of earth away from my roots all the time, I knew she resented me, somehow wanted me to falter ... but I thought she would outgrow that, I thought that our love and our bond would mean more than any of those belittling emotions.

But she couldn't handle it.

I partly blame my family. Always comparing us. Always matching the 6 of us against each other - Ricebag, BabySister, Muzz and the other 3. I've had my own demons too because of it.

And the result? I think I still love Muzz. I can't escape that. There's too much blood, too much history. But I do not like her.

Muzz left college and got impregnated out of (shock-horror) wedlock and put MyMama and our whole lot through a dry ringer and it was stressorama for all of us. But we all survived her fuck-ups - partly because she produced two of the most unimaginably aware, intelligent and gorgeous girls ever. And we all moved on together. And her falling apart since then and her subsequent divorce and losing custody of those girls hasn't fractured my family and put Muzz back in the centre of the crumbling bowl the way she would have liked. Instead, we've all coped with it and gotten on and are going about letting her life be hers. And I give a big-up to my family, for the oldies, for emerging from their comfy old stifling ways and letting us be who are are, for better or for whatever.

And now ricebag returns. Living, seeming to have lived the life Muzz kissed off when she came back to PNG & made babies with a certain Mr R. She is spitting vipers.

And when I spoke to her on Friday my heart stopped. And skipped a beat. And I talked to her. And she just couldn't help herself. Belittling me. And I managed to speak up for myself - although not as well as I should have. Pity her, I remind myself. Pity. The very lowest of sentiments, Muzz and I once agreed. And it's hers. And I ask myself why this intense jealousy? And I think it's because she resents me for still being single; for still seeming to be starting out; for falling in and out of lust and making love in all the wrong places; for hitching and hiking and almost dying and almost really living; for being insanely weary; for knowing beauty and loving ugly; for still being who I said I would always be - just me.

And I refuse to lose any sleep over her closing madness. I won't. I've got enough handbags of my own to carry.

And I am sad. Because Goddamit she is missing out on ME ... on US. And I don't have convenient amnesia. I remember. We had FUN. We were alive. We made music. We felt free. We dreamt dreams. We lived them. People watched us and felt like being better sisters, best of friends. It was an intense, volatile relationship that could have grown into something more real and substantial if she hadn't convinced herself that all her missing pieces fell through the hole I created when I left her behind and grew up.

And what makes me more mad than sad is that I am missing the 2 babies. I have a right to see them and hug them and watch them grow. And she has cheated all of us in this family of that joy.

At the very least I know I am not afraid of Muzz. I understand parts of her but not all. And I don't really care to. I know all I need to. That she is turning black inside and she doesn't know how to go back.

I'm decided. I'll be there for her when she finds the bottom of her fall. I will be there. But until then she is going to need another flower to piss on.