It was not my parents' intention to have two children in the span of 364 days. Yes, you read that correctly. I was born the day before my brother's first birthday. How did they handle that exactly? Well, my mom will tell you that I spent the first year and a half practically living on her hip so that my chubby big brother wouldn't bowl me over on the hardwood floors. The day I came home from the hospital (on his birthday), he slapped me on the top of the head as a welcoming into his territory. That was probably the only time my brother has ever been mean to me, though.

Of course, we used to fight like cats and dogs. We used to drive my parents to the point of insanity with our failed prank attempts and general shouting as a form of communicating with each other. When you're young though, the only thing you have to worry about is how annoying your sibling is, so I would go back to that any day. We were mad we had to have a joint birthday party every year because he wanted a batman theme and I wanted a barbie theme, or he wanted to have it at an amusement park and I wanted an all girls sleepover. I had a love of writing in journals and he had a love of playing soccer. We could not have been made to be more opposite.

Fast forwarding to now, we're still pretty much the same. Well, mentally at least. Thankfully, I got braces and Ross grew a few feet. He still plays soccer and I still write all the time (obviously). But the one thing that never changed is how close we are. We pretended to hate each other like all siblings do, but we really never wanted to do anything apart. Now, life gets in the way a lot, and even though we go to the same University we don't see each other a lot. We do talk almost every single day though which is not something a lot of kids our age do with their siblings. God made us this close in age for a reason. He knew we would go through family trials and personal struggles and need someone who wouldn't stop loving us and understand what we needed in times of darkness.

We don't listen to the same music. We don't like the same tv shows. I love to read and he doesn't. He loves to exercise and I'm allergic to physical activity. He's a business major and I'm an English major. Oh, and we could not look more different. Like, at all.

We do have the same sense of humor, though, as much as I hate to admit it. We feel pain in a lot of the same ways, and we spread love in a lot of the same ways. We know which things from our pasts make us tick and which ones we will never stop laughing about.

A sibling is not something everyone gets to have, so I don't want to wake up one day and realize I took mine for granted. So, I don't.