When I think about my relationship with my sister, one word can come to mind: tumultuous. We were not good friends for a very solid chunk of time. I always saw my sister, older by three years, to be the cool one. I always thought of her as prettier, and I always thought people liked her more. When we were kids, she had big blue eyes with near-white blonde hair. I, on the other hand, had a very severe bowl-cut, plagued with brown hair. There was a difference in age, yes, but I also just felt that there was a difference in personality. She was outgoing, and I was shy. She liked sports, and I liked art. She liked blue, and I liked pink. And in my mind, at the time, that was enough of a list to create a division between us. So, in more of my formative years, I didn’t think of my sister as a ‘friend.’ I thought of her as a sister. Just a person who I spent a lot of time with, and did a lot with.

And, as the years went on, this classification has evolved. I have come to see my sister as a best friend, and not even in that cliche way where nothing ever goes wrong and it’s just cute coffee dates and gossip. I feel like we see it a lot - my sister, my best friend. When I see this, sometimes I write it off that they were always meant to be. And I can’t say I thought my sister and I were meant to be.

We fought.

A lot.

We fought about everything. Imagine sharing a room with two teenage girls, with limited space, one closet, different schedules, and different sleeping patterns. Things were far from angelic. We would fight about clothes, friends, what time to leave for school when to go to bed, and if we could keep one, both, or none of the lights on. My mom had an idea that it would be possible for two pre-teen girls to share a cell phone... To clarify, this will never work and one will just usurp the phone. (That would be my sister). There were many tears, a lot of yelling, and a lot of compromise with my mother’s mediation.

Despite all of our fights regarding room territory, closet space, clothes sharing (stealing), cell phone use, and reasonable bedtimes, I would make the claim my sister and I are two of the closest people you have ever met. We get what the other is thinking and feeling, we laugh at each other’s jokes that don’t make sense to a vast majority of the population, we cuddle consistently, and we help each other.

The biggest thing that I have found in my 19 years of having a sister, is that she helps me even when I don’t know I need it. I can recall many times getting mad at my sister for her telling me what I didn’t want to hear. I thought she wasn’t being supportive, but looking back on it I can realize she was just being supportive in a way I couldn’t recognize. We often try to mute the advice we don’t want to hear, and it is harder to turn down the noise on someone we love and respect. So any time my sister would give me advice I didn’t like on an outfit, a friendship, or a relationship, I would try to block it out. But, I would always have this nagging feeling that something was off. That someone who knew me better than anyone else, wasn’t supporting what I was doing. And sometimes, I would go ahead with my choice, and often regret it in the long run.

There were so many times when my mom would ask me about how my friends were at school, and if I thought I had a best friend. The answer came clearer and clearer to me - my sister was my best friend. I never felt the pressure to find a best friend at school, because I had one living with me 24/7.

She was the one who helped me navigate the unsteady terrain of high school relationships, the one who held me when my heart was broken, the one who laughed at my jokes when I needed someone to validate my humor, the one who would tell me drama was part of high school, and is the one I go to when I needed to get away from everything else. The one person I can have a crazy night with, and have the same amount of fun on a quiet morning. She’s the one who I can laugh with for hours, and the one who will listen when I need her to. She’s the one who can help me understand my own hurt, and turn it into something I can learn from.

I personally don’t always take the moments I should to appreciate the small things. The small things that make me laugh, smile, or think. The things that make me feel centered, grounded, and supported. The things that push me to be better. The things that make me dream big and work hard and believe in who I am and what I can do. And you, my lovely sister, are all of those small things into one incredible person. These things, together, create an unbelievably huge presence in my life. A presence I am eternally grateful for.

So, advice to the younger sisters. When your older sister tells you that a boy is bad for you, he probably is. If she tells you something doesn’t look good, maybe don’t wear it. And when your older sister is about to graduate from college and leave you for the real world, you’ll want to go back to the times when you were fighting about who had more closet space.