If you ever look on Pinterest under “sister quotes” you will find a plethora of heartfelt sentiments like, “Sisters are the best friends God gave to you”, which for many people is true.

Yet, for people without sisters it is hard to understand what it’s like having a sister who you’re not attached at the hip with. All families are complicated and have their own problems, and that doesn’t mean that sisters will always end up being best friends.

I was given 4 sisters, what I did to deserve this I have yet to figure out. I’m just kidding, I like to say that I don’t like any of my sisters, but I will always love them. This is the part where people go “awe”, and ask if we’re close. In my head, I am contemplating the pro and cons of lying or telling the truth. The lie would be, “Yeah! We talk all the time and they’re my greatest support system.”, which isn’t that big of a lie.

To hear the truth, you’ll need a bit of background info.

I have 3 older sisters’, S is 12 years older than me, M is 11, and G is 4, while my younger sister O is 2 years younger than me. Before I was even born S and M were attached at the hip, being 13 months apart will do that to kids. It wasn’t a shock to anyone when they started a blog together or ended up living in the same city as adults. Being over a decade older than me limited our chances of bonding, when S and M were getting ready for prom I was getting ready for Kindergarten, when they were learning to drive I was learning how to ride a bike. Being that far apart in age was a huge factor in my relationship with them. Sure, when I was a baby that got to play real life dollies with it was all fun and games, but when I was a crying toddler my parents made them babysit or a young kid who wanted to hang out with their friends it was anything but fun. I always looked up to them, but before I got a chance to know who they were they were off to college. So that explains why I wouldn’t consider S and M to be my best friends, while their best friends with each other I never felt left out because they were so much older than me.

With G and O is was a quite different story. O, my younger brother, and I have a different dad than our older siblings which never really mattered growing up, which never matter to us as we were raised that they were our siblings and never anything less. When I was around 10 G started to spend more time out at her dad’s house, which meant that we didn’t always hang out or see each other. Then, just a year later, my parents separated which meant I saw G even less. During our parent’s divorce O and I got closer, going through something horrible tends to do that to people. Even when we were close we always had our tiffs, we were going through puberty close together which caused many of our fights.

When I started high school, things became different, G and I were always in limbo, okay some days bad the others, and O and I grew further apart as hectic lives got in the way. I was going through a lot personally, and O was finally starting high school with an army of friends and extra-curricular activities. It wasn’t until I went away for school and G came back to KC to finish her degree did everything really fall into place.

I came home from school around Thanksgiving to not the two separate sisters I left, but best friends attached at the hip.

This shock hurt more than I expected, it wasn’t irrational for them to get close after I left, but the way they pushed me aside gave me a feeling I had never received from my family before. This continued into Christmas, spring break, Easter, and now into the summer. As I leave to go back to school I wonder where it all went wrong, where I ended up with the short stick, with no sister to pair with and call my best friend. I joke around with G and O that they are the “Wonder Twins”, it’s a term I coined while constantly being left out on our family spring break trip. They like to use the term now as a joke, using it as a reason to keep me out of things, “Sorry this is Wonder Twin business.” Sometimes I think they forget what it means to be family to me, but never to each other.

I have tough skin, something I rely on in difficult situations, but to see the bond that they share and that S and M share is heartbreaking, because it’s something I have never experienced with any of my sisters. I hope one day I am able to experience this connection with one of my sisters, but for now I am just the odd one out.