I had a realization a few days ago that feels really obvious looking back at now, but had never really occurred to me before: there has never been a moment in my entire life where I existed without my older sister. Every single moment that I can remember and the even ones I don’t, she has always been there, a guiding force leading me along. You can just call the fact that we ended up sisters pure luck, chance, or a random decision made at the hands of God, but most times it feels a lot more powerful than that. We are two products of the same environment who very easily could’ve just tolerated each other in a life beyond childhood and into adulthood, but instead it has intrinsically tied us to one another. It’s the first thing I tell other people about myself–I have a sister, and she’s my best friend. It’s become such a defining characteristic of who I am that it’s become second nature to bring her up at any opportunity possible.
In a lot of ways, there will always be a piece of myself begging to share a room with her, to always live in the same house, town, and mere vicinity as her—as if this meaningless distance could somehow ever cause us to drift away from one another. It’s that same part of me that will always want to have matching haircuts with obnoxiously short bangs, and wear the color purple opposite to her signature pink. The same part of me that will always want to plot and scheme ways to get what we want, and beg her to ask questions to servers and sales clerks when I’m too shy to do it myself. I suppose in another life and every one after, this is still us; a much younger me still stumbling behind her, soaking up every little bit of light escaping her.
Growing up is a lot of absorbing, and often forgetting, the younger versions of ourselves that no longer really exist. It’s hard. My dreams have changed, my beliefs have evolved, and I no longer know the things I used to at 15, 10, or 5. Sometimes I think if I were to walk down the street and past who I was all those years ago, I wouldn’t recognize her. But I would recognize my sister as her 8-year-old self, or her at 12, 17, or 22. Those versions of my sister still exist inside me, as I’m sure mine do in her, and isn’t that love? I carry them around like old friends that I can pick up the phone and call, or like a perfectly worn sweater that’s begun to fray along the hems. Isn’t that such a comforting thing? To know someone else and who they were and no longer are, at every stage so profoundly that you can’t possibly forget them?
She made a comment to my best friend in the car a couple weekends ago about how she can’t listen to this one song alone in the car without me because she starts to cry. The lyrics definitely aren’t the happiest, but it’s upbeat and has a chorus that’s impossible to not sing along with. It’s been among my most streamed songs for the past three years and we saw it live together over the summer. It was the only song from the set that she knew—because of me. I think this embodies what sisters are. It’s crying over songs your sister loves because you miss her. It’s buying something because your sister bought the same thing last week in a different color. It’s ganging up on your baby brother because annoying him is what sisters do.
I know love because I know my sister. If the world were to ever stop and grieve anyone, I know it would be for her.