A Young Woman sits “crisscross applesauce” on a boring couch in the middle of the stage. She looks calm, maybe a little stiff; she’s been here before. She plays with the rings on her fingers, her hair, and picks at her nails. There is a warm yellow light focused on her and this couch.
YOUNG WOMAN:
Yea, I never quite thought about how weird it is to be in the middle. Like I feel like that’s my entire life. I’m the middle sibling, the middle opinion, and even the middle between parent and sibling. Like I’m definitely a younger sister; I annoy the crap out of my brother even though we love each other, and he’s the absolute best brother ever…of all time. But I’m also an older sister, I parent my younger sister and tease her to no end even though I know how sensitive she is. I’ll never know exactly how my brother felt, but I know that for a good portion of my childhood and into becoming an adult, I parented my sister a lot. Sometimes I’d even parent my brother despite him being older than me. Like I would make dinners because somehow, I’m the only one besides Mom who can make pasta without overcooking it, or I would be the driver when we went out somewhere. I can’t count the number of times I’ve given my sister advice on life or boys or school, and she just doesn’t listen, so, really, what’s the point.
I was always mediating fights between one of them and our parents. It was… a lot. My brother is the only boy and the first born, so there were a lot of expectations set on his shoulders. My sister was the baby, and she always wanted things to go her way and with our parents so busy all the time, she often got what she wanted. I always existed in the middle, somewhere between crushing expectations and getting my way.
Don’t get it twisted or anything, my parents are good people, and we were all just doing our best. It can be hard to be an attorney with their own practice or an accountant for a hospital and keep a “perfect” home life. It’s especially hard when one parent starts working in another state because the pay is so much better, but it also means sometimes she has to stay in that state during the week. But they did their best. And we did ours. It’s just sometimes your best isn’t enough.
And now that we’re talking about childhoods and everything, all I can think of is how my mom always referred to my siblings as her “book ends.” It used to leave this bitter feeling on my tongue and like I remember my chest getting all tight and uncomfortable. I guess I was always a little jealous about how my siblings seemed to be able to just be, with no parenting relationship mixed in. Maybe it’s the age difference or the birth order or maybe it was just how our parents “raised us each differently.” But it didn’t matter because in the end I always felt alone, and the older and more cynical and melodramatic we get, the more my mom’s nickname for them made me feel that way. Like I’m a lone book on a shelf between two book ends.
A second light opens on a Therapist sitting in a rolling desk chair. They are finishing with scribbling some notes onto a pad of paper. The Therapist and Young Woman have been working together for quite some time.
THERAPIST:
And with that we are out of time.
