4 of 30 - Your Sibling - Julie

My first sibling. My first best friend. The first person I looked up to. Cheesy, I know, but it's true. We are a year and ten months apart. She was named after one of my mom's best friends that died in a car accident and her middle name is Jenise which is a combination of her other friend Jill and Aunt Denise. I always copied everything she did, I really looked up to her. She would look out for me and I felt protected. We could sit and have conversations for hours and I really enjoyed it. I always envied her, she seemed to never have a problem with life. She made it seem like she skated by with no problems at all. She was really intelligent. Never had a problem in school and made straight A's in her sleep. (Total opposite of me) But something happened, she started to make poor decisions and her life path turned. She started to get into drugs (I'm pretty sure) and hanging out with friends that did drugs and what not. I still kind of was looking up to her at this point. She would let me hang out with her and her friends and go to local concerts with her and her friends. This is the first time that I was offered pot, haha. I went to a concert with her and her friends in Nevada City and somehow got away from her and I didn't know where she was so I just clung to one of her friends that I knew. They were going outside to smoke cigarettes but then once they were done with that they said we should go for a walk. We walked down the street and out of the way of the busy downtown street and went underneath a bridge and they took it out. I politely declined for two reasons. One being I didn't want to, and two being I wouldn't know what the fuck I was doing with it and didn't want to look dumb.  But at that point I realized I didn't think I should be hanging around with Julie as much, I didn't want this to be my life, hiding under a bridge smoking pot. Also she ditched me at the concert and I didn't find her till way later on and she made it seem like it wasn't a big deal. She always had tons of friends and talked to everyone. It was another thing I admired because I had so many troubles talking to strangers. When we lived on LeDuc Street she walked around to all the houses and knocked on the doors asking if they had any kids her age to play with. That's how she met one of her friends Jennifer, haha. Well then she really fucked up. She got together with the epitome of douchebags and his name was CJ. And they were in so in love. And they were going to get married. She planned her wedding for her Senior Project. And she destroyed all of her friendships around her by devoting everything to this retard. He was controlling, emotionally and physically abusive, and had a crazy temper. My mom allowed all this to happen. I lost all respect for her at this point. He was a druggy loser and I couldn't believe she was falling into this trap, she was too smart for this. Soon enough she was 18 and graduated high school and they were living together. She completely shut her family out. I hated her for it. I wanted my big sister back. I wanted to be able to sit in her room again and be able to talk to her about everything and get advice and have her teach me new things. Once I realized that would never happen again I cried myself to sleep a couple of good nights. I lost her.

After giving up on the relationship that we had together it wasn't much longer that I moved away and didn't talk to her much. But, being the sucker I am, I kept trying to give her chances. I kept thinking we could go back to the way we were. For my 18th birthday she offered to buy me my first tattoo. I 'just had to' go to CJ's tattoo artist because he was the best. The plan was I would drive up to GV pick her up and then we would go and get it done. But what ended up happening is when I came to pick her up she wasn't there so I went alone... to some dude's house and got it done in a garage. Yep. Safest thing ever, right? And I had to pay for it myself and she eventually paid me back. I never really told anyone exactly how it happened but that's the way it went. I was so scared and she failed to be there for me again. She blew it off like it wasn't a big deal. But it was a pretty big deal to me... freshly 18 years old and going to some stranger's house who's a friend of my sister's loser boyfriend... oh wait I was probably overreacting. NOT no way in hell would I ever let Ashley, Brittney, or Miranda do that without me. Or any of my friends for that matter either.

Needless to say after that I did give up on her. I didn't care to keep up with her life or what she was doing. I didn't really know much that was going on. She lived with CJ's mom for a while and I think they got kicked out and I remember hearing that she was homeless for a while in Sacramento. Once it finally didn't work out with her and CJ and she was able to leave him she moved back in with my mom. Everyone babied the victim and she milked every minute of it. I hated that. I had no sympathy for her, she could have left that relationship at any time. She was just too much of an idiot to do so. I couldn't understand it, she was so smart, why the fuck was she allowing this to happen in her life.

I'm a firm believer that you are in control of your own life. If you don't like your relationship end it. If you don't like your job, get another one. If you are unhappy figure out why and change it. Too many people just sit back and live unhappy and I don't understand why. We only get this one life that we know of so why waste it being unhappy?? It's annoying. I know there are things that aren't possible. Or they are possible but people are too lazy to try and you aren't getting any closer to it by sitting back and complaining and whining about it. You can at least put forth an effort and say you tried and you know what you might figure out that's not what you really want but you have some experiences that you are able to learn from and possibly find something else that does make you happy.

I started to get more and more pissed at my mom who just let Julie basically free load because she was "healing" from the relationship. After like 2 years or whatever it was, I really had enough. There she was living at home for free, I was paying rent to live with my dad and Judy since I was working instead of going to school. Then I moved out and I was paying for all my own stuff. Sold my car and bought another one. I was doing grown up things and there she was jobless and doing nothing with her life or contributing to the household. I had become the older sibling. My dad and Judy didn't really have a relationship with her either. They tried though. They would invite her down. They bought her another car after CJ trashed hers. They basically bought her three cars... oh how I was pissed about that. I had so much anger toward her that it started to make me more sad than angry. I cried to Ryan a lot about it. He told me I should just forgive her and get over it basically, but I didn't want to just let it go. I let a lot of things go and I felt this shouldn't be something to just let slip through the cracks.

After that all boiled down, I just tried to keep my distance from her. But didn't think it was fair that she was missing out on Miranda growing up and the relationships that I was building stronger with Dad and Judy. I felt she should be a part of it. We always invited her places to game nights and what not. She would either not show up after saying saying she would be there and have some dumb excuse or she would be hours late. We ended up telling her earlier times than the things were planned so we could just get her there on time. For Christmas we would go up to Lake Tahoe and I was forced to share a room with her but she would show up late for the vacation and leave early. I would always want her to be there but couldn't wait until she was gone.

She's different, she's not the intelligent woman I used to know. Something happened to her. She's a compulsive liar so I'm pretty sure she's the only one that actually knows what happened and will never share it with others.She used to be so talkative and open and just a social butterfly and wanting to participate in activities and now she doesn't want to do anything other than sit around any play games and take surveys online and waste her life away.

Two recent events have really made me turn my back on her again. Our family reunion was this year. It has been being planned for months in advance and she had all the same information I did. Of course I was closer to where the event was going to be since it was being held in San Diego but it's not like she has to ask for time off from work. I was super excited about it and thought it would be good for her to get out and talk to some of Dad's side of the family. I texted her about and and asked if she wanted to go and she said yes so I told her to make it happen. I even offered since she couldn't afford the hotel that her and I could stay at my place and then we could drive down to San Diego together. But she wanted Morgan to go and he couldn't stay here so I told her she would have to get a hotel room. Judy saw me putting forth some effort and wanted us to be there so she ended up getting a room for both of us to stay in, before Julie was coming down I was just going to jump in the parents room and mooch off them and they were ok with that, haha. So after months of me basically planning out her trip for her she made it down here. It wasn't long before she was complaining about something. At dinner I didn't sit near her because she was already bothering me and I wanted to see people that I hadn't talk to in forever. But I could hear her annoying voice across the table explaining to the other family members that I 'guilted her' into coming to this event. WTF? Are you fucking serious!? You did not have to be here, I figured you would like to be included in a family reunion since you are part of the fucking family! I can't believe you are 'blaming' me for you being here. I almost got up and told her to just go home now if she didn't want to be here. That's all she could do the whole time was blame me for having her here. You should fucking thank me that I got you out in the real world for a little while. You stay in your apartment and you don't have a job and don't socially interact with anyone anymore! That made me so mad! Before Morgan was going to go too I told her I wouldn't go to the baseball game so I could hang out with her. Except I really wanted to go to the game and they didn't, even after Dad and Judy offered to buy them tickets to go. I didn't feel bad for ditching her for the game after the way she acted at dinner. The next day in the lobby of the hotel I broke down crying because all I wanted is for her to have a good time and see the family the way I do . They left a day early because supposedly I only told her it was so many days. Again another blame on me. I was so relieved when she left. I couldn't handle her any longer.

Event number 2. She forgot my birthday... plan and simple as that. I waited all day to hear from her. And nothing. I got texts and calls from people I barely talk to anymore. She called the day after and her excuse was that she was housesitting for the parents who were in Downiville. Ya they came into town so they could call me and sing me Happy Birthday.... and she was sitting around the fucking house doing nothing and she couldn't call me on my birthday. Oh and just basically sat back and watched Brittney get arrested too. That's awesome too.

To sum it up. I have no relationship with her now nor do I care at the moment to build one with her. Again I'm done trying and I'm sure I'll give in again somewhere down the line and give her another chance and just set myself to be hurt again. But I guess that's what you do for family.