the disturbing past

Carrie and I just spent a few minutes in her room looking over her photo albums she’s put together since she’s been in college. Lord, she’s changed… a lot. We agreed that we’d both changed by pictures, but also by… who we are and how we think. Then she dug around in her closet until she came to her free writing folders. Her sophomore folder, her senior folder, and the folders she’s created since she graduated from high school.

I think she wants to let me read her free writing. I must admit, I’ve always been curious. It’s kind of interesting to know I can read the diaries of my best friends and total strangers, but never have had extensive access to my sister’s. I have always been intrigued by her writing, because she and I are so alike within yet so very different outwardly. We look different – no one ever guesses we are sisters – we are smart in different ways, we act different, we are different socially, professionally… it’s strange. Our thoughts, however, are strikingly similar, at least from what I can gather without reading her free writing. Of course, we don’t always write about the same things – I think I have a tendency to be more superficial and let things flow as I think, whereas she takes time before writing, and she’s usually deep – but our reactions can be the same, and our strangest, darkest thoughts can have odd similarities.

At any rate, I wanted to write about something I’ve never told anyone. I just briefly told Carrie after reading a rather personal entry of hers. I can’t really discuss the connection, or what we were talking about because I respect her privacy, but I am going to tell you about an experience I will never forget.

I don’t remember how old I was, I don’t remember what season it was… I only remember that it was dark out, and Carrie and I were in the basement. We were rough-housing a little bit… just horsing around. I was giggling and pretending to strangle her all in fun, and she was laughing in return. I remember getting a sudden thought… I have no idea where it came from. Something in my mind said, wouldn’t it be funny if she thought you were just pretending to strangle her, and then you really started to be serious? I’m not sure if my mind was saying to strangle her, or whether it was saying make her actually believe I’m going to and then not… but it scares me. It scares me because I started applying more pressure… and she stopped laughing. My dearest Carrie… my best friend and older sister… looked up at me and said, “Erin, you could really actually kill me.” And then I stopped, and blew it off by acting as if I had no idea, but was sorry. And I was sorry.

That night I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I had this choking sensation in my throat, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I could have killed my sister. Sometime before it was too late, I got out of bed, trudged downstairs and got a glass of water. The motivation was either a thirst and desire to stop the sensation in my throat, or rather to just have some human contact, see some light, stop being alone in my bedroom. Every few years I replay that in my head sometime before going to sleep. And I cry and cry and cry… I could have killed my sister.

The older I get, the more frightening that experience actually comes. Of course, I’m able to view it more rationally, but there’s something even more disturbing in those thoughts. They were purely evil. For a split second… or maybe even several seconds… pure evil was flooding my mind and heart. And that is what scares me. I’ve never experienced something like that since, but it makes you wonder. It makes you wonder about that argument that has always existed… is man inherently good or evil? I don’t have an answer to that. I don’t want to get into a discussion regarding that. But it is a good question, isn’t it? I was really young… I was relatively sheltered by my parents at that point… I loved my sister more than anything… Where did it come from?

When I explained part of this to Carrie, I asked her if she remembers that. After all, I remember it clearly, and she was the one that was almost killed. Thank God she had no recollection of that event. It may have scarred our relationship for a long time… thank God she thought it was completely innocent. In a way, it was.