She
A personal experience showed me how the drive for perfection can deteriorate one’s mental health, often fueled by others’ expectations.
She has always carried the burden of being the “talented one” in our family and the “responsible one.” Since childhood, there’s been this unspoken rule that she’s supposed to excel, to set an example, to always be the best. Every try, every achievement, every move was met with approval, but also with a quiet raising of the difficulty for the next step.
She’s incredibly gifted, no doubt, but I’ve watched her burn out countless times, sacrificing her own well-being for the applause and approval of others. And I know deep down that what she truly wants sometimes is to simply exist, to enjoy a peaceful morning without a studying schedule, to choose a path that isn’t full of gazes that judge her. It’s sad to see how the constant pressure to be perfect has overshadowed her joy in simply enjoying life.
As her sister, I had always been gratefully behind her. Not as someone who was better than me or higher than me, but someone who was willing to test out the waters first for my sake.
She was just like the puller of a bike group, breaking the wind so that I could go farther than her.
She used to be happy, able to savor the joys in life.
Somedays, she’s angry; on others, she’s happy. But i wonder is she truly is.
Now, she doesn’t come to find me; she just cries sometimes. It’s sad to see her cry and wipe away her tears as if it never happened, and it makes me want to cry as well.
We ate together after church once. Ironically.
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We talked about what happened during church, but then we started talking about the world. Oh, how big and far the sky and ocean were! So many people in it, and I was just so small. It made me feel sad.
She just laughed bitter and said, “People are not kind.”
And I said, “The world is not kind.”
Her eyes became watery, and strangely enough, tears started to well up in my eyes as well. I took a bite of my food, and it just made me want to cry more.
It burns in the eyes at first; then the temples and the bridge of the nose start throbbing. And I tried to hold in the tears, but my throat started to hurt, exactly like a lump was in my throat.
She told me to be kind.
She told me to keep being kind.
Because she was not.
And she protected me from the meanest of all.
