Everyone with a younger sister will be able to relate to what she is about to read. I am a college sophomore. My sister is a senior in high school. We are 23 months apart exactly. We are best friends. But...
We didn't always used to be so close.
When we were toddlers and pre-schoolers, we hated each other. She would bite me like an emaciated dog sinking its teeth into a fresh chop of mutton. I would burst into tears and tattle on her, seething with sinister delight as I watched one of my parents reprimand her.
When we were in elementary school, we fought increasingly frequently. We weren't as violent as when we were tots, but our arguments were more verbally charged. We would scream at each other. We would disagree on everything. We would argue over the tiniest, most stupid details just to prove to the other that one of us was right. We were too stubborn to be friends.
In high school, we each started to evolve into our own person. We pursued different interests and hobbies. We pursued different friend groups. We weren't constantly hovering in each other's personal space (which was a tremendous benefit to our relationship with each other).
Now she is almost graduated high school and I am almost halfway done with college. I no longer live at home and she is seeking to move out. I live about a thousand miles away (no exaggeration) so we only see each other on special holidays and breaks. We facetime often, but that is no substitution for the real face-to-face interaction.
Because of this distance, when we do see each other, we are as cordial as humanly possible. We express our love for each other openly and with gusto. We spend more time together than would be thought healthy. And we actually enjoy each other's presence.
Our attitudes have shifted not only because we have matured as people, but also because we now realize the value of time spent together, since we are not granted much of it. We do not want to squander a weekend with each other by getting into a ridiculous fight over which way the toilet paper roll should face or who used whose hairbrush without asking.
We embrace each other's awkwardness and silliness and love each other regardless.
As our adult lives continue to flourish, I look back on my time apart from my sister and do not despair, but rejoice.
This time spent apart finding ourselves without each other developed our unique individualities, which we now carry into our emerging-adult lives. I am going on 21 and she is going on 19. We are both fully functioning adults (with a little financial support from the parents, of course). Our adult selves look back on our childhood selves and laugh in retrospect at the absurdity of the fights, both physical and verbal, in which we would endeavor.
Our personalities are so different from each other, but we are sisters nonetheless and we love spending time together (now). When I am granted the time to spend with my sister, I can genuinely say that I enjoy it.
So, if any of you have sibling strife, trust me, it will subside with time, and with age will come shameless love and familiarity. Do not waste your time together now. For you never know how often or how long you will be with your family.
