resist(e)r

in an electrical circuit (like i know anything about electricity, aside from "don't stick a fork in the socket" or "don't touch the metal part of a plug when inserting"), a resistor "resists" the flow of the current (measured in ohms), such that the "downstream" flow of electricity is diminished. great if you wish to control the current, tamp it down, so to speak, to a "manageable level."

i thought of this with regards to a particular sibling (who, oddly enough, i don't think of much, or as much as i should; a matter of distantly desperate concern!). there are certain problems that make it, shall we say, difficult to unconditionally love someone. i do, ultimately... deep down, i do. but the nature of certain problems makes it- well, full of caveats. i find myself holding my breath, when i allow myself to actually feel my relationship with my sibling; more often than not, even this reaction is beneath my consciousness, and i just go about my days stepping over her memory shamelessly... again, it's not that i don't love her, because i really and truly do. but the avoidance of certain issues, it's become- well, rote.

every now and then, i revisit my desensitization to her... i have tried to redeem her in stories. but somehow even in my stories, there is a gravitational pull towards a more cynical (realistic) view of things (funny how realistic almost always implies the downward turn). the dissatisfaction of this, it periodically "re" starts the "rewriting" process...

and that got me to thinking about the resistor. how it tamps things down, controls currents. is that what this issue with my sibling serves within me (or rather, my reaction to this issue)? with ohms, holding back the current of unconditional love and acceptance, reducing it to more manageable levels?

i often wonder about this... how sneaky our survival instincts are, how "smart" we are at protecting ourselves. beneath the radar, at times. we are not allowed to love those we say we love to the full extent that we can, because, built in, there is something within us that knows that such love will destroy us. and so we live, we live this half-life, bound by and maintaining a closed economy... surrounded, rebuffed, recharging towards:

resistor.

re-sister.

a simple question: why can't everything be alright?