Five years ago, in Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, I met my stepsister, Katelyn. Here’s the backstory:

My mom and her boyfriend, Doug, went to an auction and decided to purchase a vacation in Paris. The apartment they bought only fit four people, though, and they each have two kids (one boy and one girl). They decided to take the girls on the trip. At the time, I was a sophomore in high school and Doug’s daughter, Katelyn, was a junior in college. Since she went to school in another state, she and I hadn’t met.

So there we were, meeting for the first time in an airport, ready to embark on a weeklong trip to across the world. In case that wasn’t awkward enough, we arrived at the apartment in Paris to find out that it only had two bedrooms, and the bedroom I would share with Katelyn only had one bed.

Katelyn and I learned a lot about each other during our stay—maybe more than we wanted to (she snores). But it forced us to become close right away, and in the last five years we’ve only grown closer. When our parents got married in 2013, I was happy to have two more siblings in the family. Suddenly, family dinners became more bearable (sorry mom) and family vacations became more fun.

Now, Katelyn and I talk almost every day; our parents even joke that we talk to each other more than we talk to them! We get our go on lunch dates, have sleepovers and borrow each other’s clothes. We FaceTime multiple times a week, even when we’re going to see each other the next day.

Katelyn is often the person I go to when I need advice or just want to vent. We share the same (immature) sense of humor, and she always knows how to make me laugh. She’s always so supportive of me, and I’m lucky to have her to look up to.

When you give a girl a stepsister, you give her a shoulder to lean on, a constant source of laughter and a best friend. Thank you, Katelyn, for being all these things and more!

xoxo