If You've Ever Had a Sister.... Then You Need to Read This Today

"Worrying: If I am not here one day, will they be close?"

If you've ever had a sister.... then you know what it feels like to write about someone on their birthday without fail, but still find them a mystery the world is perpetually pulling from you- like a riptide on the Florida coast.

If you've ever had a sister.... Then you've witnessed someone you think you can predict almost better than yourself, yet then find yourself hurt when life changes you like the "play dough" you used to make with your mother, from "cheap white bread" and Elmer's glue.

If you've ever had a sister.... Then you know what it's like to have "love by convenience" because you share the same room and toil over the same toys, but then one day, you realize the quietude without them feels just a little too hallowed a hall.

If you've ever had a sister.... Then you know what it's like to war over who fits into which box you've created for yourself in life- who likes what favorite color? Who is going to make an entire species of animal their entire identity? Who is going to like Pearl Jam more (she did) and who will just want to be as cool as the sister who paint the lyrics to "Black" on their wall in high school....... And then, somehow, in the end, you realize that the Venn Diagram of your lives and personalities and traditions and histories and preferences overlap more than you ever let it allow as you filled out survey after survey (it was a thing) of what YOUR favorite was, and you realize that you actually secretly had some of the same favorites the whole time, and they could have connected you, not divided you into little lonely bedroom boxes- even when you shared the same room.

If you've ever had a sister.... Then you know what it's like to share a room.

If you've ever had a sister.... Then you know what it’s like to open someone’s medicine cabinet or bathroom vanity when you’re both basically-40-years-old and it would otherwise be theft… and think with absolute certainty that you have the right to each other’s products. And with absolute certainty that theirs are somehow better because they belong to the someone that you somehow have always longed to be.

If you've ever had a sister.... Then you know what it's like to follow lore of your own creation that no one else will ever appreciate like they. You will never scream like banchees of Roan Inish, running wild and free to a Hocus Pocus game of your own creation late at night (to whch she would say, "That wasn't me. That was our cousin")- but you get it.... We never feel like that at sleepovers at another friend's house; Worrying about their parents' rules or when and how they might one day reject you.

If you've ever had a sister.... Then you know you spend most of your childhood secretely wondering when your "best friend forever" bracelet will break with the neighborhood kid, or a girl from dance, or your mother's friend's friend-of-friend's kid- because they will inexplecicably move away in elementary school, or start wearing bras and talking about boys earlier than you when you don't want to, or they just suddenly change.

If you've ever had a sister.... Then you know you can change and will: But you somehow keep that bracelet-making best friend, forever... You just never appreciate what the world somehow gave you. A promise, always kept. A sleepover, always possible.

If you've ever had a sister.... Then you know what it's like to truly love someone who knows how unlovable and hateful and fallible you can truly be.

If you've ever had a sister.... Then you know what it feels like to take for granted something your mother likely worried about every night, as she closed her eyes before bed.

Worrying: If I am not here one day, will they be close?

If I am not here one day, who will break up their fighting?

If I am not here one day, who will remind them that they are all that they have in a life of friends who seem the very best- then grow fickle at the finish line.... Or jobs that seem our whole identities, but then don't seem to blink when you retire after 25-something years (someone new and ready to replace you already lined up, waiting for the gun to cock).... Or partners who you live (really, you do)- but without a sister, who can you kvetch about them to when you realize they don't love the thing you love to hate together in exactly the same way?

To have a sister:

Is to know what it's like to really love the real people you really are.

To have a sister is to really love.

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