Baffled By The Light..

A year after my twin had gone off to college, my Dad was traveling to visit her and insisted I come along. I was reluctant. My sister and I hadn't talked since the night I humiliated her in front of her friends in my drunken rage. I didn't want to be reminded of the trauma I saw in her face that night. I wondered if visiting would only resurface disappointment, anger, and pain associated with our past broken relationship. Nevertheless, somehow I ended up on the road with my Dad to see her small college town.

My plan was simple. Stay quiet in the front seat. Reject interaction. Avoid any awkward eye contact. Keep my guard up high.

My Dad and I pulled up to her house. Immediately, Alicia runs out smiling and bubbling with excitement. She jumped into my Dad's car, full of life and radiance. She was like someone I was meeting for the first time. Something had for sure changed.

She no longer looked "disgusted with me," as she had written in her last words that violent night a year ago. She didn't even seem to remember it was her "Evil Twin" in the car. The way she talked to me was like she either had complete amnesia, or had just woken from an operating table after being pronounced dead. I was baffled.

Alicia talked about her friends, her music, and great college experiences. Yet something above it all made her alive and infectious. Her eyes seemed full of confidence, joy, and compassion, even towards me. She looked at me with this kind of love I had not seen before. I was certainly at a loss for words.

I was struggling to hide deeper in my seat. Somehow my thick layer of pride I used to reject the non-anarchists of the world, like herself, was not working. I felt powerless.

She began sharing her story. She shared how her last year had been "life-changing." She must have used that phrase a dozen times. Girls down the hall in her dorm invited her to a "Bible study." She explained that she had discovered a "personal relationship with God." "He is changing my life," she announced excitedly, as we passed through the flint hill sights of Manhattan, Kansas.

We came to a scenic view where my Dad parked and stepped out of the car to take pictures. I stayed in the car while Alicia kept asking me countless questions. She seemed desperate to find me. However, the stronger she pushed, the louder a voice began screaming inside, "Shut her up!" Like the scene in Good Will Hunting where the psychiatrist kept repeating, "It's not your fault. It's not your fault!" There I was, agitated, squirming, and repulsed by all her words and kindness. Yet admittedly, I knew deep inside my soul, I wished them to be true.

I gathered my arsenal and attempted to close the conversation with a rebuttal and rejection of her newfound Christianity. I acted as if she were oblivious to what she was missing out on in my world. I shared in a cynical way, "The only difference between you and me is that I can do whatever I want and now you can't." Not very profound, but enough I hoped would keep distance between us.



I expected my comment to surface some old "disgust" I was accustomed to receive from her. I hoped to walk away revealing only a brainwashed girl struggling to find her own identity. Instead, Alicia was not irritated. She did not argue. She did not even turn away. Alicia just seemed to let go of me right there. Her eyes welled up with tears. She patiently and compassionately smiled. She seemed strong and confident, willing to wait for the conversation to surface again some day in it's own time. She turned our attention to the scenic view of the city and we suddenly started talking, as if for the first time.

Alicia had my attention. The walls I had put up for so long to keep her out began to crumble down that weekend. She won my trust and my friendship. Though I would still keep far from her world, Alicia, from then on, would not go away.