I grew up in your typical family of four. (At least, to me it seemed typical because, we all fit perfectly at tables, and in cars without being squished.) However, there was one thing I always thought I was sure of as a kid, that my youngest sister was sent from above to purely punish me.

I knew that I begged my parents for a sister. What I didn’t know was that growing up--two girls, four years apart--it wouldn’t all be fun and games.

Most kids go through “terrible two’s,” but my sister Kat went through far worse. All I remember for her first four years of living is constant yelling, crying and her throwing her sippy cup at my head, only to yell at me to pick it up for her, and the cycle repeat.

Of course, it wasn’t all like this. And once my sister reached the age of five or so, we made up games to play with each other. We pretended we were secret agents and the closet was an elevator, our dog was a shark we had to run from (with the tree house being our safety boat), the floor was hot lava we couldn’t touch and sometimes we would play fight while pretending to be wild animals. (Only to my demise, she kicked me in my face and knocked out a tooth that wasn’t nearly ready to come out. You can imagine this was the end of that game.)

Childhood was pretty fun with a sister. All we had was each other. But then came the pre-teen and teen years.

Arguing over whose clothes belonged to whom, sharing or not sharing make-up, the eye-rolling, the shoving, the hair-pulling. Who hit whom first, who could come in each other’s rooms with friends, almost anything could be an argument.

“Kathryn did it!”

“No, she did!” Are phrases that my parents are well-aware of by now.

There were many years of arguing with my sister. For a period of time, I would come home from school as did she, and we wouldn’t even tell each other about our days. I had zero clue what was going on in her life and she didn’t know much of mine. Nothing was necessarily wrong but we weren’t very close. I decided that I would accept the idea that not all sisters are best friends and that my sister and I definitely never would be.

It wasn’t until I left for college that my sister and I became close. Maybe we both matured, or maybe we actually realized we missed one another, even if it was arguing for three days straight and slamming doors at each other’s faces.

No matter what it was, I think pairing two girls together for life is bound to have some downfalls no matter what. I think my favorite part about having a sister now is, I know that no matter what I definitely do have at least one permanent best friend in my life (two if you include my mom). Even though I run to my sister and hug her when I come home and she says to get off, you can feel the love between us now way more than before.