I've always known my place in the world.

I'm not sure if this was ever fully outlined. I just kind of knew. No one explicitly said, "This is your role, Allison, and be sure to carry this out as you take your place in the world." I don't really think anyone goes through that. But regardless, it was ingrained in me from a very young age. I knew the person I was meant to be.

When I think about this place, I think about one very specific memory: I was five. It must have been summer because it was hot and my hair, pulled back into a pony tail, formed little ringlets around my hairline. I was sitting on the floor of my living room, carefully analyzing a floor puzzle of the United States. It was my job to locate the correct state and place it in its proper location. And while this might have been a more difficult task for a 5 year old, I was up for the challenge. With each state carefully placed, I confidently named its capital. My mother observed as she made tea in our kitchen.

I have a sister. And while she is now one of my very best friends, her and I did not always get along. We're just shy of 3 years apart in age. And of course, she wanted to do everything like me. Looking back, I'm amused at just how ridiculously cliche this sentiment is. But I remember it being an absolute tragedy; she wanted to dress like me, do all of the things I wanted to do, hang out with my friends, and sit with me at every waking minute. She would never admit any of this now, but I remember. I also remember her trying to lay out the states on my map. She would pick up a state, and plop it down with a wide grin. Of course, it usually was in the wrong spot, and this would frustrate me to no end. I knew she only wanted to be involved. But frankly, I was just annoyed with her presence. Because if anyone that wasn't immediate family were to ever observe something like this, they would be beside themselves:

Oh, isn't Jessica the absolute cutest?! Look at her trying to be like her big sister! She is such a beautiful girl! She will be a heart-breaker one day.

Ugh.

My sister is the pretty one. And I'm the smart one.

That's how it's been. That's how it will always be. There's no changing it.

My sister has naturally blond hair and bright blue eyes. She was always very athletic, so growing up, she had more defined muscles than I have as a fully grown adult. She didn't trip over her own feet when walking. She could learn a dance or a somersault in a matter of minutes. She always had a lot of friends. And boys noticed her well before they ever noticed me.

I too, had naturally blond hair. But it was dark. My dad joked that it was "dishwater blond," not quite blond, but not quite brown either (And this is my justification for spending inordinate amounts of money dying it now). I read a lot of books. In the summertime, my mother would shoo my sister and I outdoors; and while Jessica would run across the street to the park, I often placed myself under a tree to read.

I think as I grow older, I appreciate these differences so much more. I look back fondly on the way her and I learned from each other and how we were still able to interact despite some pretty major differences. She taught me how to do a cartwheel. I helped my mom teach her how to read. We dreamed together. We played "pretend" and imagined our lives as successful, capable, and loving adults. She threatened to beat up the kids three times her size when they teased me. And I hugged her when she scraped her knee. We're sisters. I look back on these memories so extremely grateful that God could have placed one of the best human beings around in my immediate family.

But sometimes I still feel the pang of envy when I see her getting ready for class in the morning. She still wakes up, hair disheveled, looking like a model. I still choose to read a book rather than go to the gym. Observers note how smart I am. Observers note how beautiful she is. 18 years later, and our places in this world are just the same. My name is Smart. And my sister's name is Pretty.

While much of this image might be confined within my own self-doubt, this idea has been truly present in our lives. These words have been spoken to the both of us. And somehow, despite our parents telling us otherwise, we have both realized that our purpose for this world was limited to one small feature. We could only ever be smart. We could only ever be pretty. Never both.

It took 18 years for me to realize that my sister had felt the weight of these roles as well. It just kind of came out one day. She just flat out said, "I'm tired of everyone thinking that I'm not smart."

I wasn't sure where this came from. Clearly I saw her as so much more than just "pretty." She is one of the only people in the world that can get me laughing until my sides hurt. She can sit in her Science classes and absorb the information like a sponge. She can dance better than most of our family. She is so insanely talented; so much more than she realizes.

But then I realized that the 'harmless' rhetoric of the bystanders of our lives did so much more than create a streak of envy in me. It created a streak of doubt in the both of us. In the constant praise of these bystanders, my sister knew she was pretty, but never knew she was smart. I always knew I was smart, but never really thought I was pretty. And we both never fully comprehended the reality our mom always tried to teach us: that our livelihood was so much more than 'pretty' and 'smart.' Our worth isn't tied to a label. Our value as women is not what we can produce, but who we are. God made two wholesomely beautiful women. But we were blinded.

And I think we still are. It's difficult to turn off the switch of the world. This is especially difficult when the world fights to place these labels upon us. In the event of building frameworks, all of us have been pigeon-holed into categories that seek to keep us confined. We have been told to "define ourselves in three words" but is that even possible? How can we fully understand ourselves and those closest to us through a mere list of adjectives? How come we let a couple of statements define how we see and operate within the world?

It's challenging to let go of the strongholds that tell us we are nothing more than these labels. But I think the closer I get to my sister, the more I realize she's just as human as I. Broken, flawed, and holding a greatly skewed self-perception. The more I see her through this lens, the more I remember her, and myself, as strong, successful, capable, and loving adults. I see us as dynamic individuals, with so much more to offer the world than just beauty or brains. Maybe one day our known place in this world will be more than test scores, makeup products, or even puzzles of the U.S. I pray that one day, we'll wake up with the feeling of truly knowing our own intricacies, passions, desires, and drive. I pray that we will know the true roles we were meant for. I pray that these things don't have to be outlined. These will be things that we may just come to 'know.' We'll see.