Can't Live Without You

About three years ago I quit studying medicine in Germany and moved back home to Hawaii, despite the fact that I'd been trying my whole high-school life to get out and away from my parents' house and off the island. The transition back wasn't easy. I no longer had a school or a class of 15 familiar faces to hold me, none of my former work contacts were relevant, most of my friends were off beginning their own lives, and I had no focus or direction other than an urgent desire to be in Sweden and to be with Nature. I was floating in a sea of uncertainties and the traumas of medical school were haunting me. I was always an independent child, afraid of and unused to asking for help. I took care of myself, and tried to keep my problems my own, but this time I needed my family to support me. So I returned to O'ahu, the crowded capital island of Hawaii; to my parents' house in the look-alike, cookie-cutter suburbs of Hawaii Kai.

Was it good to be back? Yes, the sun filled up my depleted stores of my will-to-live, but I never quite felt as at home as I had before I ever moved away. I figured it would come in time and tried to settle in. I floated around and let myself relax for a few weeks before falling in love and finding a job. Anchorage, exactly the opposite of what I had "planned." My plan had been to stay around for a few months, heal myself, maybe work and save a bit of money and then go to Sweden for the summer and explore. In the middle of February I moved back. In the end of March I had a lucky date. In the beginning of april I fell in love and in May I got a job. Whoops! So I ditched my plan to spend the summer in Sweden and travel and explore the world and myself, and stayed. First my job was intense and kept me busy, then it got fun, but ultimately it became a routine that I slaved away at, wasting my precious hours.

At the same time, things weren't good on the parental front. I was turning 20 that fall and craved the freedom to be myself and lead my life, and yet that wasn't an option. I was a near-20-year-old living at home like a 15 year old kid that had chores and rules and consequences. No curfew, but a demand on my time that I wasn't willing to give. But I felt I had no choice. I wasn't financially independent yet and couldn't just say, "F you, I'm moving out then." With my just-above minimum-wage, part-time job I couldn't even afford to pay rent for a shabby little room in somebody else's  home in Honolulu, let alone food and all other expenses. I didn't want a life like that, to slave away all day and then eat cup-noodles in an exhausted pile in the evening. So I held on. I sat through psychological torture and tried to tune out my fighting parents, my hormonal sister, tried to be a good daughter, devote my time to my family, "hold on, hold on, your life will start any minute, " I tried to tell myself.

I tried to escape however I could. I leaned quite heavily on my then-boyfriend, spent the nights at his place whenever I could, ran my shoes to bits, hiked until the sun set and even at night, tried to find excuses to be outside, to be away from our house. Sometimes I'd sit on the porch in the evening, until the stars came up and the rain started to fall until I absolutely had to go inside. I was 20 years old, yet I wasn't.

Some time in August I burst. I broke down. The girl who never cried let a few tears fall onto her then-boyfriends chest and within two days was on a flight to Stockholm. Everything was alright the minute I landed at Arlanda Airport, as if my oxygen had been cut off and was restored with the very first bubbly sound of the Swedish airport announcements. I could breathe. This is where I wanted to be. Away from my chaotic family. Away from a semi-sweet life on a tropical island in the middle of the ocean. Away from that floating uncertainty, that feeling of not belonging, of drifting and wasting away. I worked on the farm for a few weeks while I was there, spent time with some of my closest friends, and mourned my return to "paradise."

Upon my return, my then-boyfriend broke up with me, my parents tried to have another baby, despite my sister and my protests that they couldn't even take care of us, and I went back to my lovely but mundane job. I got a second and even a third job and worked them simultaneously; in the café, as a hiking guide, and as a tutor to a high-school student. I did anything to distract me from the reality of the fact that my life seemed out of my hands. The anxiety built within me and again I thought I was going to break apart from stress and pressure. Yet I was still living under this fear that I needed my parents or I would be living on the streets. This existential crisis lead me to do something that I never ever should had. I ratted on my sister for a "party" that she threw in our living room while I was at work and my parents were out of town. It was horrible of me. Especially since she never did that to me, despite the many opportunities. I remember breaking down in a heap on my parents' bed, telling them of what she'd done, in hopes to redeem myself for my own supposed faults (they'd found out about her little gathering and interrogated me and I just couldn't lie.) That was one of the worst days of my life. I was tugging at things, screaming, scratching my own skin, pulling at my hair— I wanted to check myself into a psych ward at that point. I couldn't handle it anymore. Life wasn't supposed to be so painful. Your parents weren't supposed to torment you and try to rip apart a bond as sacred a sisterhood, and yet they persisted. They weren't supposed to make you want to sleep on the porch and run away from home when you were a fully legal adult.

I let my sister down. I may never forgive myself for it. Even though it's a thing of the past, and honestly, nobody cares about that stupid little party anymore, it's the mere act of breaking her trust and our confidentiality that weighs upon me.

I wasn't the best sister then. The fact that I wasn't free and yet should have been off living my life was so terrible at the time, that I slipped into a narcissistic and self-preserving mode. I would escape. I would manage to get myself out and away. And if that meant ignoring my then-14 year old sister and pretending that she wasn't important and that our relationship was not #1, then that's what I had to do. I'm sorry.

By March 2013 I decided that I would investigate my options because my living situation became unbearable. California? Perhaps. I checked it out but wasn't convinced. My plans morphed into a summer vacation to Sweden and within a few days I knew. I knew that I would have to move here. And so I did. I made a quick trip back to Hawaii to take care of my sister for a few weeks while my parents were away, and in that time I packed up my life. Again I found myself more self-centered than ever before. The excitement of my outrageous Houdini-act intoxicated me. I was taking a short-cut to my happiness, or perhaps just a smart route. My sister was 14 and a half and our parents were gone. Off course she was going to to be trouble. I hated her for it. Couldn't she have just been happy for my escape, my move to my favorite place in the world? Couldn't she just try to be supportive and not stress me out and be annoying and impossible? We flew to California together, where I dropped her off with her friends before continuing on to my paradise. We hugged each other tightly and cuddled a bit on the plane, but I can't say that I was torn up about the separation. At least I wasn't then.

Now it's over a year and a half since I moved here and I'm settling. I'm learning the language quickly, finding myself some scraps of work here and there. Have a wonderful and loving boyfriend, a cozy home, organic food. I don't plan on leaving anytime soon. But something is missing, something very important, something vital for my happiness. That something is my sister. It hit me hardest in the past summer when she came and visited, and I realized that our lives have been so closely and powerfully intertwined that to live on opposites sides of the world is a crime to our bond. We're both growing older, developing and maturing and yet we're not doing it together. We've done everything together. We've bashed our parents, bashed each other, traveled, moved, stood up for each other where there were bullies, and listened to and understood each other. There's nobody that understands my family situation as well as she does, and visa versa. Nobody could possibly feel our pain the way we do for one another, and nobody could make either of us laugh the way we make one another.

When I was back in Hawaii, we fought, naturally. We do that, especially in the presence of our parents and our periods. But at the airport we both cried waterfalls at the security checkpoint because neither of us could let go. What if that was the last time I would see her, you never know. Thoughts like these swallowed me and I could hardly breathe on my way through the full-body scans. Yes, you fucking surveillance-whore of a country, scan me, scan my body, scan my bones, take my blood, do what you like. But you'll never know what's in my heart right now, you'll never be able to empathize with this tearing-apart feeling. My other half has to stay in Hawaii while I go venture off into the world and live my life, live my dream. Why can't she come with me?

This hit me very suddenly yesterday, while she and I were skyping. I miss her. More than I can even describe in words. But not just do I miss her. I need her. I can't imagine that we could spend the rest of our lives like this, each of us on our respective half of the globe, with biannual visits. That just can't work. I feel a deep guilt and sorrow for my selfish attitude while moving here in 2013. Though it was vital and crucial for me to get out of that home and into a safe place and though the decision has put me into a very good place in life, I never considered her in that decision. I neglected her and I'm sorry.

-Little bro, if you're reading this, please forgive me. And please move to Sweden or something (also a totally selfish request) because I can't live without you.