Sister

noun sister\ˈsis-tər\

a woman or girl who has one or both of the same parents as you (Merriam-Webster)

When you see sisters together they are usually laughing and carrying on. What you don’t see is what happens behind closed doors. The real stuff that actually defines sisters. There is more to being a sister than just being born to the same parents. I have been fortunate to have more than just one sister, and also to be the youngest girl in the family. The next in line is my sister who is only about two years older than me. She and I are the definition of what true sisters are, in my opinion.

When we were younger, of course, our mother dressed us alike. We looked alike and we were so close in age we could almost pass as twins. Though as we got older we started to fight more and more. But this is what sisters do right? We would scream, hit, and throw things. There was no mercy. On the outside looking in you would think we hated each other. But I knew, and she knew that wasn’t true. Whenever she would get in trouble, and get a spanking, I would cry for her. If someone was being mean to me on the playground, my big sister would come to my rescue. There were things like this that not everyone knew, but we did. She would come to my defense when I wouldn’t defend myself. She was doing what big sisters do. Despite our differences.

Still as the fights got worse, we grew apart. But I do believe the fights have brought us closer together. When I moved away for college, it was the biggest change in our lives since she moved. I remember being scared to tell her I was leaving. I was afraid of what she would say because I value her opinion, after all, she is my big sister. As is turns out she had the most support for me, which shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. Me being gone has made us closer. It is weird to think that distance has done this for our relationship, but I truly believe that it has. I can call her upset about an essay and she helps me and she calls me from work when she has to walk into the basement. We have cried together and laughed together. It’s about give and take.

My sister and I are the true definition of sisters because we have always been just that, sisters. She is day and I am night. Complete opposites, yet there are those moments when we are the same. We have fought and tried to rip each other’s hair out, but we have never abandoned one another. Siblings will fight, I have learned that it’s inevitable. But it’s what you learn from the fights and how you move on from it all. There are things in everyone’s lives that they try to forget and leave in the past, but if you can learn from it, why run from it?