The rudest person I know

There are few people in this world that have enough emotional sway to truly hurt me. I've become pretty proficient at compartmentalizing my life and emotions. At a young age I developed a healthy sense of humility and modesty. I'm by no means a cute petite little blonde hair blue eyed American beauty, but I'm not wholly unattractive either. I'm too tall and too big boned (my sensitive way of saying a little fat) to be considered for any beauty contests. What I'm trying to express isn't that I'm a giant dog, because I'm not, I'm actually rather pretty. What I'm trying to express is that I don't have any false delusions. I am who I am and I like it that way.

I don't really care what others think about me. I say that fully expecting you to laugh at the blatant lie inherent in that statement. Being human I am always in some kind of perpetual struggle for the approval of others. However at the end of the day it doesn't really bother me if someone doesn't like who I am as a person. I like who I am and that's all that really matters. My cousin has hated or resented or just disliked me for years now, no idea why; but I've gone out of my way to try and repair any bridges that somehow at some point were damaged. She'll always be a part of my life, she is family. I probably won't be seeing her more often then the family gatherings, I mean its not like she's my sister. Which brings me back to the rudest person I know. My little Sister.

I would like to think she isn't consciously cruel. Not like the first boy I ever told I had a crush on laughing at me (the start of a long line of poor choices in men). Yet her actions and words are constantly crushingly mean. She isn't even the meanest or overtly rudest person I've come across but she is probably the most hurtful, and being myself I can only have myself to blame for that. She's my little sister and though she is technically an adult, I care more about her opinion than anyone else. She's been there most of my life, I've been there her whole life. She has the body I always wished I had; petite perfectly proportioned trim size two. The truth of it is she probably envies my height just as much as I envy her lack of it.

I'm no Mr. Darcy my good opinion can be lost and reclaimed a million times which is the case with me and my sister. Five years my Junior, I'm sure she has had far more baby of the family stigmas to deal with, especially since I've always been the independent and self sufficient one. Now I'm just making excuses and justifying her words and actions. I'm a caring, accommodating and giving person by nature, I generously blame my mother. Subsequently I find myself being taken advantage of with a fair amount of regularity. No one in this world knows how to take advantage of me like my little sister.  From running errands to making her meals I do it all and somehow feel privileged when she actually deigns to converse with me. To hear her berate herself about being fat, which she is most definitely not, is like a knife cutting to the quick in my soul. Every time she sells herself short it hurts just a little more. The fact of the matter is a twenty-three year old woman such as myself should not care as much as I do about the opinion of her eighteen year old sister, but I do. I still ask for her opinion on outfits despite the fact that we have very different senses of style. I love her more than anyone else and that's why every cold shoulder, every snide remark, every look of censure from her hurts more than the worst any stranger could ever do.