In the “Overview”, it gave you a small descriptiion of what my sister looks like, in compasiorn to myself. Now, some people think that my sister and I look alike, but there most certainly is a color contrast.
As kids, my sister would get compliments frequently about her eye color and her skin tone, and her hair. She had longer, black, curly – wavy hair. Hazel eyes, and olive skin. As a child (I was around seven or eight years old), I never really thought much of it. Until our mom started thinking much of it.
One day we were in the mall walking into
Target and a young lady stopped us. It’s me, our mom, and my sister. She wanted to tell my sister how pretty she was and how pretty her eyes were. The lady looked over at me and said nonchalantly, “oh, you are too”, smiled and walked away. After that encounter it just seemed as if our mom continued to bring it up, and then she would add on other encounters where my sister would get compliments. Our mom would always have this smirk on her face when she would talk about my sister’s compliments and she would always look directly at me. It started making me uncomfortable, maybe it was the smirk on her face, maybe it was the frequency that she would mention it, maybe it was new insecurities that I was forming.. at seven or eight years old.
My sister and I were playing one day and I casually mentioned that her hair was “poofy”. My sister, was about four at the time started crying. Thus, ran and told our mom what I said. Our mom is in complete outrage by this. She scolded me for hours that day. I clearly remember our mom telling friends from our church, friends, and family members that lived on the other side of the country that I was “jealous” of my sister. She told them “she wishes she had hair like her sister! She’s jealous of her!” All because I said her hair was “poofy”. Now, I’m embarrassed, because I honestly didn’t mean anything bad by it. I was a kid, describing what I saw but not in a mean way or to be hurtful.
This is how the division begins..
“The jealous are troublesome to others, but torment to themselves.”
― William Penn