Who are these people?

That's how I often feel about my sisters. One older, one younger, different from one another, sure as shit different from me … and both incredibly annoying. I wonder how we all slid from the same womb.

My older sister is highly competitive. She has to be the best. "Good enough" is not good enough. She never understood that Sunday School story about not having to blow out someone else's candle to have yours burn brighter. She believes in stomping out other candles just to make sure hers is the brightest. Fortunately God made her the prettiest. That has sustained her through some of life's rough spots.

UNfortunately, her world is filled with mere mortals. People who not only don't reach her high standards, they don't appreciate her fabulousness. Right now the most unforgivably mortal person in her life is her 18-year-old daughter. The poor kid has never been good enough and, consequently, has never been trusted to make her own decisions about anything. Her teen years have been turbulent, filled with passive-aggressive rage. She became a cutter and attempted suicide twice. Last week, my sister came home to find her daughter's room completely empty. Clothes, meds, phone, ipod … all gone. My niece texted her mother more than once, letting everyone know that she's safe and that she's crashing with friends, including their names in one of her messages. I don't consider this running away. Maybe running for her life, but not running away.

I cannot express how angry all this has made my older sister. A less-than-perfect daughter was sooooo not in her plan! A daughter who rejects the life my sister wants for her is soooo not acceptable! So she has done the only thing a crazy drama junkie could do: she has hired a private detective to track down my niece and bring her home.

I predict this will be the easiest case her detective has ever had. They know who she is living with and they have the license plate of the car she's driving. Doesn't require Hercule Poirot, does it?

I resent how much this is worrying my mother, who loves her grandchildren very much.

My baby sister has quite the sense of entitlement. Her husband lost his job in July. Here it is, mid-September, and he hasn't found another job yet. There are those out there (like me) who feel that perhaps my sister should work. She is able-bodied and both of her children are in school.

Excuse me? What could she possibly do? She has no college degree. She can't be an advertising writer (like me) or a CPA (like our older sister). Does the world expect her to work at the mall or something? Well, yes.

Things are getting fiscally rather dire in their household. She has reacted to it the only way the baby of the family, used to having things done for her, could: they let their expensive COBRA elapse so that neither she, nor her husband, nor her children have any health insurance. Why do they need that, anyway? After all, they have me, my mother and our uncle to come through as reliably as ATMs.

I not only resent how much this worries my mother, who is terrified that the kids are going to get sick or that they will become another mortgage foreclosure statistic, I resent it on my own behalf. I helped out with back-to-school supplies and clothes for the kids, but until my baby sister gets a job, my wallet is staying shut this time. I have my own retirement and security to consider.

All this is weighing very heavily on me. While my sisters infuriate and annoy me, I worry about their children. Kids don't choose the breaks they get. And I hate the toll it's taking on my mom. It's not fair.

It's also confusing. I work very hard to not be a victim. To be responsible. To put others first when the situation calls for it. These are choices I've made. I'm just as selfish, just as lazy, as they next person. It takes effort to be the woman I want to be.

I look at my sisters and ask, "Who ARE these people?" I simply don't understand them. Nor, I suppose, they me.