Sisterhood isn’t always something you can explain out loud. Sometimes, it exists in a way that only the people inside of it can understand. It’s built from memories no one else witnessed, conversations no one else heard, and moments that would sound small to anyone else but mean everything to you.
I think about that every time I remember the way we used to talk in Pig Latin. We didn’t come up with it on our own. We learned it from our mom and her sisters. It was passed down to us like something unofficial but important, like a quiet inheritance. It wasn’t written anywhere or taught like a lesson, but it stayed with us anyway. That is the thing about sisterhood. It does not stay in one place or one generation!Â
It started as something simple, something playful, but Pig Latin became ours. A language that lived between us. I remember walking around during lunch whispering quickly in it, sharing things I could not wait to say out loud. Something funny. Something annoying. Something that only made sense in the moment but had to be shared with them anyway. I remember gossiping in it, fast and quiet, talking about things happening right in front of teachers who had no idea what we were saying. Our friends would ask what we were talking about, but I liked that they did not understand. It wasn’t just about what we were saying. It was about the feeling of having something that belonged only to us.
Sisterhood, I’ve learned, is like that. It creates a world apart from what everyone else sees, a smaller, more personal one. Our world is shaped by experiences we’ve faced together, and parts of us that we’re only ever seen at home. And for me, my sisters didn’t just exist in my world. They helped build it. If you saw us from the outside, you’d see three sisters: different personalities, different moods, different ways of moving through the world. But if you looked a little deeper, you’d begin to understand. We are each other’s witnesses, or accomplices. To everything.Â
I remember the way we would all get ready together, crowded around a mirror that was never big enough, arguing over who was taking up too much space. It felt like chaos! Our voices overlapping, someone rushing, someone annoyed. But underneath the chaos there was comfort, because at the end of the day we were all there together. I remember asking, “Is my part straight?” and not even needing to look, because one of my sisters would already be behind me, fixing it. I remember the quiet focus of someone straightening the back of my hair, and although I couldn’t see what they were fixing, I trusted them anyway. Sisterhood is built in those moments. You just know someone will always step in to help you, even when you don’t ask.
My sisters have shaped the way I understand a lot of things. They’ve shaped the way I view love, the way I connect with people, the way I see myself. I carry pieces of them with me wherever I go. Destiny’s bravery, her fearlessness in being exactly who she is; Mia’s patience, her quiet resilience, the way she holds things together without needing attention for it.
So much of who I am comes from the world we made together. A world made of things no one else fully knows.
A world that will always belong to us.