Vic This is Florrie.
Florrie And this is Vic. My big sister.
Vic My best friend. I didn’t think we’d be here yet. I thought we’d be older.
Florrie Really? I always knew I’d be young. I wanted to be. I told you all the time.
Vic I thought it was something you’d grow out of.
Florrie I was sure I would be first. But I thought you’d stay…
Vic So you did think about what would happen to the rest of us then? After you went?
Florrie A little. Not really. I assumed it would all carry on in the same boring way.
Vic How could anything carry on?
Florrie I didn’t think you’d follow me.
Vic Of course I followed you. I couldn’t be there without you. What would I do?
Half the time she was a hurricane, blasting through everything in her path, never really looking where she was going or where she’d been, leaving damage and destruction in her wake. Until she wore herself out.
I quietly followed her, picking up the pieces, letting her blow through the days of my life that she needed to. Leaving no mark of my own. Invisible in comparison. “Florrie’s” sister, not my own person.
Florrie She was a sun, shining so brightly, and it was all I could do to step out of her
shadow. I spent so long trying to shine on my own, to be as big and bright as her. One day I realised I never would be, so I stopped trying.
I didn’t want to be a mirror, reflect her light back, I wanted to be my own person, carve out my own space. The best way to be seen in a pool of blinding light is to become a patch of dark. So I did. I embraced it.
