Some people may think that six years is a lot. It’s the entire lapse of elementary school. It's the difference between a little kid and a high schooler. It's a college freshman and someone who just received their Master’s degree.
So, maybe it’s evidence of two people in two completely different stages of life. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be friends.
It’s still weird being the younger one in this age gap. I was in sixth grade when Erika graduated high school. The only things I know about it is what I see on TV shows and movies that I’m probably not supposed to watch. I think it’s super stressful, but also that I think Erika might be a genius.
Then she went away to college, and I’m still too young (despite what younger me would protest) to fully understand this. Yeah, it’s sad, we all cried saying goodbye. Whatever.
It meant to me that I just wasn’t going to see her every day, and that hurt a lot for some reason.
But I still didn’t understand why, not until I entered high school and she was still in college. I realized that when I was a little kid, she was a tween, then a teenager.
When I was a teenager, she was already doing a surprisingly good job at entering adulthood. And by the time I finally entered it, she was a real adult.
That’s not the point. The point is, she’s always been almost two stages ahead of me. So why would she want to hang out with her youngest sister as a teenager, when she could go to movie marathons, gossip, and have teenager fun?
It’s not a bad thing, and I don’t blame the universe for putting us six years apart. It just means that the second her and I were finally on an almost even playing field, she went away to college.
It sucked.
Yeah, there were winter and summer breaks, holidays, and special weekends, but it wasn’t the same. While she was away at school, Brianna and I were literally best friends. Only four years apart.
So while she stayed home to finish her cosmetology license, she had no problems hanging out with a freshman in high school as a freshman in college.
So Brianna and I became so close and it was great. She took me to my first concert, and we drove to the mall just for the drive so we could blast music with the windows down. But when Erika came home, we didn’t have the same connection.
And it bothered me.
I think that’s what fueled me going to Rowan in the first place. I’ve met a lot of people who have said it was their safety school, backup, or even last choice.
I didn’t have that. I applied to other schools as a just-in-case because I wanted to be able to hang out with Erika more. I wanted to become best friends with her in a way that was entirely different from Brianna and me.
Besides liking Rowan and all that other college criteria, I could come here and finally be friends with my sister because we're on an even playing field. Yeah, she’s a step ahead as she finished graduate school, but it’s enough for me that I don’t have the same divide that was there when I was in sixth grade and she was in twelfth.
So, now I’m at Rowan, and I can hang out with her, get dinner, complain about anything, beg her to get a pet and talk about how much I miss the dogs at home. We watch the Real Housewives of X and talk about how crazy this woman is and how much we love each other.
Erika is more than a sister to me. Of course, it’s been growing slowly as she would come home on breaks and such, but a year within walking distance of her has done so much. She’s my best friend and that’s goddamn amazing.
Happy Birthday, Erika. 25? Damn you’re old!
Love ya!