Birthday Blogfest!

The day has come! Today is the one year anniversary of my blog, and as a celebration we're having a blogfest.

I tried to get my Linky widget onto this page so the rest of the entries would be here, but after looking at it I am afraid I will break the rest of the links. So here is the link to the other bloggers: 

Birthday Blogfest!

Be sure to check out everyone else's entries! I am so excited to see what every one else wrote!

Here is my own entry. It's about twins!

Dear Aurora,

            I am really sorry about what happened at our birthday party. I don’t know how things got so out of hand. Our celebration started out like any other. People congratulated us on finally coming of age, and Uncle Senu made lots of embarrassing jokes. So pretty much a normal family gathering for us.

            I tried to stop Dad from bringing up our matchmaking charts. You know how much it embarrasses me. You shouldn’t feel bad about scoring so low—you can’t help that you were born with red hair any more than I can help being born with black hair. I love how you’re interested in alchemy no matter what the rest of society thinks. I wish I could be that free sometimes. You scoff when I say that, but it’s true. No one expects you to marry a duke or a prince so you get to study and do whatever you want.

            It just really hurts my feelings when you act like I enjoy this attention, because I don’t. Everyone is making all of these wild assumptions about the men who will court me, and I feel like I have to singlehandedly make an amazing match or the family is going to starve to death. Sometimes I lay awake at night and worry about it.

            Even if I do match a good match, so what? It will be based on something I didn’t do—I was born with the gift of beauty. It’s such a shallow trait to be praised for. It really is uncomfortable when the ladies make a big deal about it. I didn’t earn it.

No one tells me what a good exorcist I am, even though I try as hard as I can. You feel bad about being compared to me, but I also feel bad being compared to you. Like the only use I have is to marry for money and bring in a large dowry. You’re free to pursue your dreams, and the man that does court you, will court you because he loves your personality—and looks—as much as I do.

Because we’re twins, we share our destinies. So when Aunt Reneska wants to know why you didn’t score higher on your matchmaking chart, I also feel humiliated. I wish you wouldn’t shut me out, because I do understand what you are going through. I really do.

I wrote you this letter because I wanted to tell you I love you, and I am sorry. It will get better, I swear. We’ll figure out some way to solve our courting problems. In the meantime, we can go back to playing pranks on Thasana. You’re always up for that.

All my best, always,

Sera