I never had a particularly close relationship with my older sister. Growing up, she was just sort of a fixture in my life that I took for granted. It seemed to me that we were opposites in every way. I was quiet and bookish; she was chatty and expressive. I didn’t feel that I ever understood her and vice versa. She hated to match. In our efforts to assert our individuality, our interests and activities took completely separate paths. She played soccer, so I played field hockey. She sang, so I drew. In the end we were not only wired differently, but it also looked like we had no interests in common.
When it came time for her to go to college, she chose Notre Dame and off she went.
A year later it was my turn. Despite our sisterly differences and our fierce desire to be dissimilar, I was unwilling to write off Notre Dame just because she was already there, and strangely enough, she had no objections to me joining her there. So off I went.
In retrospect, I firmly believe that this was the best decision I have ever made, not only because Notre Dame is an excellent school, but also because it marked the beginning of a relationship with my sister that I doubt I would have achieved otherwise. Notre Dame gave us the space and independence we each needed to become our own person, but in the end we had each other to fall back on.
Her presence was familiar and reassuring. I began to look forward to our semi-regular dinners. I learned how to listen to her and made an effort to communicate back. In cases of emergency, we were always there for each other’s comfort and support. She was by my side when I was hospitalized with a kidney infection and I was there for her whenever she needed a shoulder to cry on. We could tell each other things without fear of judgment, things that might be difficult to tell new friends. Being at the same school meant we could share in each other’s lives in real time, not just stale and highly edited versions a week later during an obligatory phone call.
Notre Dame became the foundation for the common bond we were missing as children. After growing in separate directions for so long, our shared experience at Notre Dame made us realize we weren’t so different after all, and we knew each other better than we thought. She ended up taking a photography class and studying art history, something that would have been previously considered to be within my domain as the designated artistic one in the family. I declared a PLS major at her recommendation, and it fits me perfectly. Even our career paths are starting to look more and more similar. Although neither of us is exactly sure, we are both interested in graduate or law school, service work abroad, and the possibility of working in government. We used to define ourselves by our differences, but being at Notre Dame together allowed us to become individuals through embracing our similarities.
Although the process of simply maturing into adults may have played a role in our new relationship, I don’t think we would have ever achieved the same closeness had we gone to separate schools. People in long distance relationships have a hard enough time maintaining the same level of intimacy even with a strong foundation for their relationship. It would be highly unlikely that we, lacking a solid sisterly relationship to begin with, would develop one over the phone with even less in common than before.
One of the things that I love most about Notre Dame is the sense of community, and in the end the Notre Dame community is what gave me a sister in every sense of the word. For that, I will be eternally grateful.
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All images provided by the author.Â