And now that I'm in college, I don't really live with them anymore. I live with them on breaks and during the summer. I live with them when I have free time and come home for one night on the weekend. I wake up in the same room as my sister then. I get to hear the random outcries and the irritated mumbling that makes up anybody's day. And I value that deeply. Sure, when I'm at college, my siblings text me. We're in a few group chats together, too.

But you don't TEXT the things that you think aloud to yourself when you step on something sharp in the hall; you don't type out the decision-making process that follows the question, "What will we eat for dinner tonight?" and you certainly don't relay the ups and downs of an argument with another family member. When young couples say that moving in together is a big step, they're so correct.

There are things that you probably won't hear someone say until you live with them. There are quirks to the way that someone lays out their personal space... there are just so many little things. They give me joy. I like the little things that I get to see at college, exhibited by new friends who have wonderful spirits that I don't know fully yet. I get lots joy out of that! I like living at college. I do not like living away from my siblings.

I might visit home for a night and see some newly developed mini-trait in Jake or Grace. It's never a big deal. People do not change that much. But there might be a little thing that I don't understand. Something that I would've gotten to understand during that one year when we were all in high school together. And I blame myself.

I think, "I have to communicate more. I have to find a way to... to live here even when I don't, so that I can know them better." But I've learned that it doesn't work that way. I can always "do better," but I can't do IT anymore. I can't have it all.

And it hurts to think about how I'm only going to live with them less for the rest of my life unless we have an apartment/house together when we're all adults. Wow, I can't believe I decided to listen to Death Cab For Cutie while I wrote this. Now I'm feeling emo.

But it's nothing that Jake and Grace wouldn't understand. And that comforts me. I know that even though I'll be living in another space than they are, we have an infinite connection. We will always be best friends. We are the only people who know where we come from, exactly. We know it in a way that we can't put into words. We are "sibling goals," and I am hysterically proud.