This post was previously password-protected, but it can be public now. Also, my sister does know about this post. I am not posting this information without her knowing it is being posted.
My sister and I have always been opposites. She is tall while I am not. She has light hair while mine is darker. (Though her hair has darkened over the years, as mine is becoming lighter. I figure we’ll meet somewhere in the middle.) She is extroverted while I am introverted. She isn’t afraid to wear bright colors and patterns while I stick to solids and muted tones. I’ve even wondered if we’d be friends if we weren’t sisters. As different as we are, though, we have become best friends in the almost-two decades that we have known each other. We are exactly twenty-one months apart (she is younger), and though we haven’t always considered ourselves “friends,” we were always there for one another, and we now consider ourselves “best friends.”
That’s why it’s breaking my heart that she has moved seven hours from me. It’s breaking my heart because she is nearly six weeks pregnant, and I will not be able to see her grow. It’s breaking my heart that she’s choosing to live with a boy she barely knows over staying here where she knows she would be taken care of.
It’s a difficult situation.
I’ve always given my sister advice. She hasn’t always taken it, but I’ve always given it to her. That’s what sisters/best friends are for, right? Even when reality was harsh, I would deal it out. I would risk her being mad at me to try to help her from making a mistake. Though I’ve always done whatever I could to stop her from making mistakes, she would make them anyway. She would learn from them, though. I’ve always known that it was my job to give her advice, even if I knew she had to make the mistake to learn from it.
So, it wasn’t any different when I attempted to give her advice this time. I told her she didn’t have to marry that boy–the boy I have yet to meet, and the boy she has only known for a month or two. I told her she could stay here and we would help her out. I told her she didn’t have to move to North Carolina just because he didn’t want to live here.
She didn’t take my advice, of course. I didn’t expect her to, really. I hoped she would, but I knew that it was her choice in the long run.
I want her here for mostly selfish reasons, I know. I want my best friend, my sister, to be here. I want to watch her grow and change as she is growing a little baby inside of her.
My sister is nearly twenty-years-old. I know that, at some point, I have to let her go. It’s a part of growing up. It may sound dramatic, but it nearly feels like a break-up. Worse than any break-up, actually. She and I have been in this relationship of sisterhood for nearly twenty years, and now it is closing a chapter. It’s not over, but it’s not the same.
We are no longer growing up together; instead, we are growing up apart. That’s what is breaking my heart.
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