Over the past few months, I’ve been doing a lot of looking back at my childhood. A handful of different major life events have led to old photo albums being dug up and hours of my parents and me sitting around reminiscing.
As we flipped through the pages, I was flooded with a million different memories that once sat forgotten at the back of my mind. Some made us laugh. Some made us tear up. But all in all, the story those pictures told was abundantly clear.
I got to spend my childhood in a house that was rarely quiet. While the number of people living under our roof wasn’t huge, the amount of love and laughter was plentiful. And I had the honor of sharing all of it with my brother, Jackson.
My mom grew up extremely close with her brother, so it was no surprise that she raised us the same way. She has always told us that no matter what we go through in life, the most important relationship we will ever have is the one we have with each other.
I have to admit, when I was little, I never believed her. Now that I’m older, I’ll fully admit that Jackson truly is, and always has been, my best friend.
We’ve definitely become closer as we’ve gotten older, but I never actually realized just how close I was to him until I left for school three years ago. And I don’t think he realized it himself until I left, and it was just him at home with my parents. And now that both of us are out of the house, we’ve never been closer.
It’s a little depressing to think about how we lived under the same roof together every day for fifteen years, and it took until we lived two hours away to realize that. It makes me regret how much I took living in the room next to him for granted.
There is a lot I have to be proud of in my life. My brother will forever be at the very top of that list. Today he turns eighteen, and it makes me proud to look at how far he has come and everything he has overcome.
Being a big sister is my favorite role in life, and getting to grow up beside him has been the best gift I have ever received. I wouldn’t trade the last eighteen years we’ve had together for anything, and I wouldn’t want to imagine growing up with anyone else.