The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (Liv and Maddie)

4

Made you look

My sister, Liv Rooney, is a burgeoning popstar who missed being with her family regularly to go sing at award shows, record new songs, and do press for her upcoming movie or album, while I stay back and angrily hold down the fort. I understand on the surface level why she has to miss school, or why she can't spend time with me. But at the same time, I don't understand why she's allowed to. I booked two days on a mini basketball trip that I had to turn down because my parents thought that liv's first concert on Christmas eve was too much of an special date for me to miss it.

I also can remember the time I had a basketball match but I also had a school presentation and my parents decided that it would be better for me to attend school, even though I begged them and told them how much that game meant to me. I thought my dad would understand, he was my coach, but he didn't care that much apparently.

Then, that week happened, the week where I was told liv wouldn't be attending school at all and that I would have to help her by doing her homework, so she wouldn't be stuck behind. Are you kidding me?.

So, I have to turn down amazing opportunities while my sister's off whistletoning at the Billboard Music Awards. Fuck this. Liv misses school in the pursuit of her career while i have to solve lineal equations for her. If it wasn't such a good sport, I wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place. I wouldn't be on this shitty room writing shitty essays about her favorite animal and what shitty things she liked to do in her free times. Im pissed about it. And im pissed at her. Jealous of her. For a few reasons.

The first is that she had a much easier upbringing than I did. I grew up being judged as the ugly sister even after she left, with a mom who constantly wept about not being able to afford rent and utility bills. Liv grew up in Brentwood, California, an incredible wealthy idyllic town with a healthy aunt who could buy her whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Gucci bags, fancy vacations, chanel outfits. I don't even want chanel outfits, I don't like the way the fabric looks and yet im jealous that she had them. Funny how we grew up together for 9 years but that time wasn't enough for us to have remotely the same life.

The second is that when i was 9, i initially got a deal for being the star of the high school play about an athlete prodigee. I wasn't into acting, but playing myself was really fun, and I was hopeful it would turn out well. I thought it was gonna be just that, my own play. This was supposed to be just "Ally" the harrowing tale of a brassy talented juvenile whose dream was to play with Kobe Bryant. Now it's some half baked two hander called "Ally and Sally" about a brassy juvenile athlete that with her best and more talented friend start a basketball revolution. This is not harrowing.

The third is that Liv is at the stage in her career where she's popping up on every 30 under 30 list that exists. And im at the stage in my career where my parents are excited that i was chosen as the second shooter of the basketball team.

And I frequently make the mistake of comparing my life to Olivia. I cant help it. Im constantly in the same environment as her, being compared to her just for being her sister, getting called liv in the streets until I turn around and they see my somewhat no pleasant face. And she doesn't exactly try to hide her successes. At first I managed my jealousy well, especially because she was far away so it was all much easier. When she left, it was maddie, and not liv.

When she called us every week saying she'd be performing at the Billboard Awards, I didn't care. So what. She's pursuing a music and acting career, thing I wasn't remotely interested in because I hated it. And in her pursuit of that career, she's gonna go sing some cheesy pop song on a stage, a task that sounds truly awful to me. I was unfazed. Then, I'd hear her shouting through the phone while talking with my parents saying she'd be on the cover of bell magazine. That one got to me, but only out of my own insecurity. Am I not pretty enough to be on covers of magazines? Would I be the one on covers if i were like her? is she robbing me of opportunities that would have been mine?.