My stylist, my therapist, my forever friend, my big sister.

Your first act of sisterly love to me: When I was born and Mom and Dad couldn’t settle on what to name me. They placed me in your four-and-a-half-year-old arms and we met for the first time. You looked up at them and said, “I just want her to be Giana.” Hearing the name spoken so sweetly, they knew it had to be the one.

Growing up, you guided me and I followed your lead without question. I’ve been looking up to you ever since I was little because I wanted to be just like you. I vividly remember watching Disney movie after Disney movie on the VCR and playing Mario Karts on the Nintendo 64 every single day. Oh, and don’t forget the baby dolls and Polly Pockets. Nothing was better than the road trips, crisscrossing our legs across the way back of the SUV so we could both fit lying down. On vacations, for whatever reason, Mom would go out and buy us matching outfits to wear. To you it might’ve been lame, but to me it was the coolest thing in the world because I got to look like my big sister.

As we got older and you started middle school, I couldn’t understand why you didn’t want to hang out as much. Life started centralizing around friends and soccer. You had grown out of the little kid stuff that I was still into. I struggled trying to keep up with you until I realized we were just stuck in two different worlds. We didn’t have the close relationship we once had and given our age difference of nearly five years it became difficult to see eye-to-eye. When I was in middle school, you were combating high school. When I finally got to high school, you were taking on college.

Now that I’m in college and you’re graduated, we have so much more to bond over. I love having you to call every single day to discuss life problems, or just to talk about nonsense. Even though we are now both in our 20s, we revert back to our childlike state and bother mom and dad, treat our puppy like he’s a baby doll, binge watch new shows, road trips are still just as fun, and vacations are even better- without the matching outfits. And every once in a while, we’ll break out the old Nintendo.

Our relationship is strong because I’ve finally caught up to you again. We like a lot of the same things and our worlds are re-aligning. Even though I will always be lagging behind, I now consider it to be a blessing rather than a curse. We each have something to offer the other: You keep me grounded and levelheaded, while I remind you to have fun and to not take life too seriously.

I think of it as you’re my best friend from the future. Instead of being here and making mistakes with me, you give me a heads up for what to expect and reassure that it’s okay to not have it all figured out.

I’m writing this note to tell you thank you for guiding me and being the best role model. You are intelligent, beautiful, selfless, and hardworking- everything I want to be and more. I wouldn’t be as mature if I hadn’t had an older sister to keep up with. I’m so happy we are closer than ever and that our relationship can only get stronger from here.

Thank you for letting me steal your clothes, thank you for the life advice, thank you for always listening without judgment. I will always be following your lead, because I will always be looking up to you. I will never take what this is for granted; I am blessed to have you as my big sister.

Without you, I wouldn’t be the same.

Without you, I wouldn’t be Giana.