I believe I was 5, but that could be wrong. We were outside of a Target in the parking lot playing with Barbies while your stepdad talked to my mom. You had long, dark hair and a complexion tanner than mine, but our smile was the same — and it still is today.

That was the only memory I had of you for nearly 18 years before I found out where you worked through our eventual friendship on Facebook. I saw you in photos and imagined your personality. You liked anime, craft beer, Free People and owned a chinchilla; at least, I pretended you did. Little did I know that I was partially right.

When I was a teenager, I asked my mom if my dad had other children. She shrugged and said I probably had multiple siblings in other states but that she knew you lived near us.

Now you work less than five miles away from my house at a martini bar my coworkers regularly end up at after long night shifts. It was the night before Thanksgiving and a group of us were in a crowd of loud, drunk people shoving to get inside and complaining when the bouncer wouldn’t let people through.

And there I saw you through the window.

Your hair was cropped, but the grin was unmistakable. I had stared in the mirror at it every day for the past 23 years and recognized it, even on the face of someone else.

Our chance encounters have been relatively anticlimactic since. There was no indie epic playing on our cinematic soundtrack the first time we met again and no streams of tears the first time we hugged since childhood. It was more like what I expected than I could begin to explain, mostly because I had realized that we are now adults and that realistically, we had no relationship beyond the blood we shared. All of the years I had referred to my half-sister and I knew nothing about her.

Apparently we’re both longtime vegetarians and avid runners, and neither of us have any contact with our father. He was involved in the recipes for our lives, and it sank my heart when I learned he didn’t speak to you either. Until that point, I had enjoyed the thought that he might have tried with you and that maybe you were offered the love I was denied from him. We were now bonded in that way too, but it was not something I would have wanted for you. My image of the world where our father may have been a decent father to you now crumbled into the same pile of ashes from where I had burned all other positive assumptions about him.

At this point in time, we are less sisters reconnecting and more young women becoming friends, but that doesn’t mean I don’t tell people I have an older sister, and that doesn’t mean I don’t want that from you. We were denied sharing clothes with each other and fighting over who had the cuter boyfriend, but we can still talk about our political views and go on runs once in awhile. I may never have gotten the chance to bug you and your older friends and you may never have been able to cut my hair into some awful, childlike ‘do, but we can discuss career aspirations and what wine we like best.

I think we found each other at the right time because I do know that we’re both happy, and now we can share in that. We came into each other’s lives after the sadness and the darkness, and maybe one day I can know you as more than the girl off Sterling in front of Target, and really know you as my sister.