Sisterly Love

I've never really been close with my younger sister. We are 3.5 years apart and I would do anything for her. However, we just don't have a close relationship. She was a sister and not a friend. She isn't someone that I would go to if I needed to talk to someone and vice versa. We are such different people that we clash. She knows what to do to push my buttons and vice versa. Over the years, we have had some gnarly fights that have even gotten to the point where we lived under the same room yet we didn't speak to one another. To say that things were tense with us is putting it mildly.

But as I have moved out and we have both matured, I find that we are getting close to one another especially in the past year and a half or so. My sister went through a difficult time in 2007 and I think it made her realize that she needed to grow up a bit. For me, moving out and also losing my cousin last year, it made me realize that the most important thing in life is family. I mean I knew that but it became clear to me that i needed to be kinder and more open to those around me. I also realized that I shouldn't be so hard on her. She and I were brought up very differently even though we are the only kids my parents had. Since she is the younger one, I often felt like she was protected by my parents and often resented the treatment she got. But I realized that it wasn't her fault. It was my parents who treated her that way. It took me a long time to get over that.

Now we email one another or text each other throughout the week to see how things are going with one another. When we get together during the weekends with my mom, we actually have a good time. She has actually stopped by my place and just hung out. If you would have told me that this would have happened once I moved closer to them, I wouldn't have believed it. When I was looking for my apartment, I asked her to come with me to look at places. Now that she is going to buy a car, she wants me to come along. She values my opinion and I do hers. It may not seem like a big thing to a lot of people but for us it is huge. We aren't the best of friends but I think we are getting close to becoming friends. And that is something that makes me really happy.


My sister and I being silly in Cancun