Ok, so this is just a quick blurb that serves no real purpose other than for me to give a public shoutout to my sister, Allison.
She is three years younger than me, making her a junior in high school. A little background on me and her’s relationship: growing up, we fought from time to time, especially more I would say in our middle school/high school years. She was only three years younger than me which meant she wasn’t too far behind, but by the time I was 14 or 15, she was at least three inches taller than me (now I’m 5’4 she’s about 5’9). This made our constant back and forth a struggle, me fighting with superiority, her fighting with height.
But as we both matured in the past few years, this fighting died down, though we still get in the occasional tussle. Reasons for this largely include the fact that I moved away at the beginning of last school year to begin going to school in LA while she’s still back home in high school in KC. The distance between us makes us, I think, miss each other more and gives us less reason to argue when we aren’t all up in each other’s spaces. Another reason for this being we experienced a death in the family just two years ago that shook and broke the previous dynamic of our family and caused us to grow closer during our time of healing.
Since then, Allison has become my emotional rock. Despite the fact that sometimes I feel I should be more of the big sister, she is my go-to person to talk out a situation or ask for advice. She is a really great listener and holds strong more often than not in her emotions. I am the type of person that needs to sift through my thoughts and relay them on to someone else, and she offers the perfect mind and ear for that. I think emotionally, she is more mature than I even give her credit for and I experience the full extent of this during my times of deep sorrow, depression, anxiety, frustration, or excitement. I can’t even recall the number of times now where I’ve had to call or quickly text her to spit out my thoughts and feeling, both positive and negative.
But that’s not to say that I’m all selfish and don’t give back what I receive. She, too, finds times to seek solitude and confide in me. Our closeness in age I think now makes our experience, especially with the loss in our family, more similar so we are there for one another to navigate our way through the situation together. Age—what used to be the curse brought by my parents on to me and my sister, now is one of the things I appreciate the most within our relationship.
She’s starting to look into schools for college and, crazy as it may seem, she’s heavily focused on going to school in the U.K. which would significantly increase the distance between us for my final year of college, as I’ll be a senior when she’s a freshman. I’ve been so excited for her for this thought of getting to go abroad for all of college rather than just for one semester and for being in the U.K., the place I hope to study abroad in sometime next year. But it just struck me the other day when I was thinking how much I have begun to appreciate Allison and her support that when she does go abroad, it won’t be as easy to send her a quick text or find a daily call time because of the time difference and international waters between us.
As I go forward, my goal is to put more intention behind my communication and relationship with her so as to make the most of it as I possibly can. But with this, I want this mindset to extend to all my interpersonal and immediate relationships. If there’s one thing the loss of a family member has taught me is that time is short and precious, so live each day to its fullest extent and develop every relationship to its potential.
Allison, I love you a lot and I appreciate you more than I think I let you know. I enjoy our short random phone calls and texts as much as I do our long, deep, sob seshes. I hope that as your big sister, I can continue to be a light and maybe some sort of inspiration in your life. Know that I’m proud of you in all that you do and I’m always here for you, no matter what the distance between us may be.