My name is Camilla and I was born aproximately 6 years after sister #2. I'm the Little one. I've been called so since I can remember and dad won't change his mind even if I'm turning 18 in 3 days and I'm a Lot taller than him.
This is what I wrote on the 12th of June, 2015. It is now May the 3rd 2025. I was looking for a new platform to start a blog, somewhere to place my not-so-interesting reviews on films and books and stuff. And I stumbled upon this blog that sister #1 started ten years ago, as a way to reconnect with me after leaving for Finland. I am feeling some weird thing in my tummy right now, cause I remember reading her first post very vividly. I remember crying that descreetly large amount of tears and I remember thinking that maybe she still loved me, after all.
I don't think I can recall what I was 10 years ago in a non-judgemental way. I grew up in a very small village in the north of Italy. I always felt left out by the world geographically speaking, cause any place was always hard to reach, and also metaphorically, cause I felt like something interesting was happening somewhere far away, and I was always late to the party. Small villages in the suburban areas in the north of Italy all look very similar. I know that now, that I've been living far from my parents house for 3 years and I've been going around these places for work. But growing up I really felt like nowhere else was as abandoned as Villa d'Ogna. I am now 27, turning 28 in a few months. I live alone near Bergamo, I work in education and on cultural project. I don't know if i can still be called the little one (but my dad does it still.)
I've been going to therapy probably since the year Laura started this blog, or maybe even earlier, because I had a lot of issues with anxiety and depressive thoughts growing up.
Feeling abandoned, in a place that I felt had nothing to offer to me, often led to me faking, making up personalities that could somehow fit among my peer group and make me feel accepted. I drank a lot, secretly smoked, felt very miserable.
So I'm trying to forgive myself a bit here, for not responding to Laura's attempt to rebuild somewhat of a bond between us in that specific moment. I've been trying to forgive myself for a long time, actually. Professionals helped me understand that when Laura left I felt so hurt and so lonely that the only thing I thought could save me was to interrupt my relationship with her. Mainly because I couldn't stand being angry at her. I couldn't stand feeling this rage, knowing she was pursuing her dreams, going after the life she actually deserved to have, far from that abandoned village we shared in the first part of our lives. I could not accept the dualism of that - feeling so happy for her, but so sad for myself. Feeling selfish, because it hurted so much that while pursuing her own life, she was leaving mine behind.
I've recently talked about this with my mom, with whom i luckily have a deep relationship. After an argument with a friend, I told her "I always find myself asking what have they taken away from me? Why do i always feel like people threathen to take something away from me? And I always tell myself that Laura was taken away from me, in a moment of my life when I really needed someone to rely on, to lean on." And she agreed that this kind of separation can only be understood by someone who's went through it. It is a specific type of grief that you feel so very shameful about.
So now, on a random saturday afternoon I found myself on this blog, re-reading Laura's post and seeing the blank space after it. It is a ten-year long blank space. So many things have happened I could not even begin to tell them. I imagine what would have happened if this thing had actually worked out. We would now have a diary of our lives apart. I feel very sorry that I didn't have the strenght to do this.
In 2022, as part of an academic project, i made an ep of tracks that tried to reconnect me and sister #1. I see that now as my (still very slow) response to this blog. Creativity is the main mean I use to navigate my feelings and emotions, expecially since Laura went away. So I feel like in my own way and at my own pace I found a way to reach for Laura's hand. It had been waiting there for a long long time.
One thing remains very clear and very close to my heart. It has been so for the last ten years, throught the ups and downs, through all the ways in which i tried to know myself better. Through the trips around Europe and the endless hours spent in airports and on planes.
Life happens to separate people sometimes - but they will always find a way to be together again. And that is what I want for me and Sister #1.
