A Message To My Little Sister

My little sister just turned 17 this week. It’s hard to believe- seventeen years old. This person, who shares the same parents as me, is growing into an adult. She is beautiful, smart, compassionate, and loving. She really is the perfect little sister.

Growing up however, I didn’t necessarily see things that way. Since I am the older sister, she was always my shadow. Everything I did, everything I wore, everything I said would suddenly be mimicked by her and I couldn’t stand it. Even into high school, when I was her age, I resented her. When I had my boyfriend over to hang out, or my girlfriends around to spend the night, she would always come downstairs  to the basement to hang out as well, which was embarrassing at the time and made me not want to be around her even more. Our parents constantly were yelling at us to just stop fighting for once. It was clear to me that we would never ever get along. How could I possibly be related to someone so incredibly annoying?!

When I went to college about two years ago, things changed. I started seeing her less and in turn, started missing her more. Coming from a family with step parents and step siblings, there have always been plenty of people in the family to go around, but through it all, she became my go to girl. It became so great to have her to turn to when all else went to hell and nobody else understood the problems I was going through. She is my favorite person to go shopping with because she will tell it like it is and really knows my style. She is always up for my phone calls on my walk home from class. When she sees that I’m sick, she does her best to cheer me up. When I’m down, she can invariably make me smile.

Now that my little sister is seventeen, I see a lot of potential in her. She will be applying for colleges soon, and she came to visit mine last week and strongly considers going here. I would love to see her do just that; not become a replica of me, but to become her own independent woman at my alma mater. She has the ability to blossom into absolutely anything she wants to, and I would be honored if she would choose to let me help her when she falls, and cheer for her when she succeeds. After all that she has done for me, it’s the least I could do.

Love ya, sis.