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four people holding hands on the beach
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SBU | Life > Experiences

Oldest Sister Syndrome

Cecelia Mineo Student Contributor, St. Bonaventure University
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at SBU chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

It’s March 2008, and I’m heading to the hospital with my dad and my Dora doll in hand to meet my brand-new baby sister.

Now, it’s April 2012, and I’m at my Grammy’s house, sick and upset because I can’t go meet my brand-new baby brother.

All of a sudden, it’s May 2023. I’m walking across the graduation stage, watching my baby siblings holler and clap as I walk towards my future.

August 2023. I’m trying to wrap my head around leaving my siblings for the first time in my life.

Now, it’s March 2026, my baby sister just turned 18 and is going to graduate high school soon. My baby brother is turning 14 and just got accepted to high school.

For the last three years, I’ve been watching their lives pass by through a phone screen. I’ve missed countless wrestling tournaments, cross-country meets, school dances, and family dinners simply because I knew that I had to move away to grow up. I miss these events, knowing that my siblings never would have missed one of mine.

When I moved to college, I coined this as my “oldest sister syndrome”, defined as accepting that we all will eventually become our own person, and someone has to be the first. I had to accept that we would slowly move on and move out, and that was just a part of life. The part that I didn’t realize, though, was how awkward it would be to have these relationships grow when there was so much distance between us. My sister and brother are the duo out of the trio now, which (sorry, Blake) wasn’t so true when we were growing up.

I come home for short breaks and summers, but the dynamic has shifted. Routines have changed, and people that I didn’t even know we didn’t talk to anymore have been replaced. The inside jokes that were once shared between the three of us are now shared by my sister and brother. I have to try hard not to let this bother me, knowing that everything happening is for the better.

But watching my siblings grow up will always be one of the greatest blessings of my life. My proudest moments are not my own, but rather the moments I witness my siblings becoming the greatest people they can be. Yes, they annoy the crap out of me, and yes, we argue more than we definitely should, but they are my built-in best friends. My sister will always be my right-hand, and my brother will always be my little dude.

If someone knows me, they also have the honor of knowing Victoria and Blake, and just how proud I am of them.

Cecelia Mineo

SBU '27

Cecelia Mineo is a second semester writer for the SBU chapter of Her Campus! She is hoping to write about literally anything; music, travel, or school.
Cecelia is a junior at SBU, studying public health with a minor in business administration. She is Secretary of the Class of 2027 at SBU, three years running. Cecelia is also public relations of Health Science Club, a team leader at Enactus, and can be found always running around campus.
Outside of school, Cecelia loves reading, hiking, the beach, and hanging out with friends. If there is a Buffalo Bills game that day, she will always be watching or listening. She is obsessed with her puppy, Emmy, has probably listened to Treaty Oak Revival's entire discography ten times over and will always say yes to a concert trip.