Another thing that made me upset when I visited home last week, was that my mom started telling my aunts and their boyfriends, and her boyfriend, about how proud she is of my sister. I was sitting next to her at the dinner table at the time.
There was not one word about her being proud of me.
Instead, I had to listen to my mom say how she "quite admires" my sister for pursuing a job in her passion. That my sister's advisor had gone out of his way to contact my mom and tell her that my sister is very talented.
Don't misunderstand, I'm proud of my sister too. I'm glad that she's good at what she does, and that it's what she likes to do. In fact, my sister fits the Pride and Prejudice description of a "truly accomplished woman:" "thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages. Also, she must improve her mind by extensive reading."
Yep, that's my sister alright.
All my life, I had been trying to compete with her. She always got better grades than I did. Even though I worked very hard for my good results, to her it seemed effortless to get better results. Even with our hobbies (music, reading, creative writing, sports), she always seemed to be better. She can read twice as fast as me. She can sing at the same time as playing piano, which I never figured out how to do. She also made it into All State, and I never did.
Then, the competition stopped for the most part once I went to college. I was able to become my own person, outside the influence of her shadow. We started traveling in different lanes. She has the mastery of foreign languages and theater set design down. I have the mastery of music performance and geology down. Two sisters, two different lanes. I didn't feel like I had to compete with her anymore.
But the way my mom started going on about how proud she is of my sister, with no word about how proud she is of me... that just made me sad. Even though I have two bachelor's degrees and am working on a master's degree and a GIS certificate, I'm still the failure in comparison.
I'll tell you why. I might have a degree in music performance, and I might get paid to play in an orchestra. But I'm still a failed musician. My undergraduate viola professor essentially told me that I'm not good enough of a player to be competitive in the field to make a top-tier orchestra. My original plan had been to get my master's in viola performance; my professor told me that I should not do that, and I should pursue geology instead. This sent me into a year-long depression when I was a junior in college.
On top of that, he shut down my dream. My dream had been to perform in pit orchestras for musicals on Broadway. Even now, the thought sends a shiver down the back of my neck. How glorious would it be if I could do that? There is nothing that I love more than musicals and playing viola. Yet, when I told this to my viola professor, he told me that that's a really shitty job. People apparently like it at first, but then they get bored of playing the same music over and over again. Then they can't afford to take time off to leave and look for a new job. He told me this because he didn't want me to "get backed into a corner with my career."
Fucking hell. So not only did my professor tell me that I'm not good enough, but he also told me that my dream sucks. So I had that happen to me, while my sister's advisor contacts our mom to boast about how wonderful she is at theater set design.
That's why I'm the failure.
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