Selfishness isn't selfish

Written on November 29, 2017

I have been a slave to my mind, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week since my sister passed away.

Some days are so bad, I realize it's 7 pm and wonder what I have done all day. While many thoughts have circulated through, the most pressing has been thinking about what others were thinking of me. Am I sharing too much? Am I mourning my sister correctly? Am I insulting those who lost someone as well? How are my friends, her friends, our family, our neighbors, strangers perceiving my grief? I constantly think about her funeral and try to remember if I said hi to everyone, if I was rude, if I cried too much or not enough. And then suddenly I hit a wall. why am I spending so much time focusing directly and indirectly on myself when I should be thinking about my sister? The road to realization has been long and winding, but the further along I travel the more I begin to understand that thinking about myself may be wrong in this particular context but it is not wrong wholeheartedly.

When I hit the wall, I stop and talk to my sister. I look through the ever-expanding pile of photos, go through her phone for the 29th time, scroll through her old Twitter, but it doesn't help. It's retroactive, it won't bring her back. I spend so much time dwelling on the past that I forget to live presently and make plans for the future. I've been stuck on the evening of October 9th for 51 days straight. I cannot change the past, I cannot go back to that day and hug her and tell her to stay. I can't go back every day before then and tell her how much we all love her. I can't do anything but move forward with my life knowing that my sister, my guardian angel, is there to guide me wherever I go.

My current self-reflective thoughts are that itself. But instead of using reflection as a means of correction, I am stuck in an ever-revolving circle. The only break I have from this vicious cycle is the pang of guilt I feel when realizing the selfishness of it all. How does this honor my sister? How does consistently and harshly judging myself, my thoughts, my words, and my actions make her death meaningful? It does not. I have been selfish in all the wrong ways.

Today, I choose to be selfish, but I choose to do so differently. I will make her death meaningful to me by making myself a better person with the end goal of bettering those around me. I want to be a fraction of light in the dark world that my sister removed herself from. I will still pray to my sister every hour of every day, but instead of asking the why's of her death I will ask for the how's of the future. I will become better for myself, and my sister.