I have one sibling, a sister who is 1 year and 8 months older than me. The funny thing about us is that even though we have grown older, experienced many things in life, we are pretty much the same girls who shared a room for most of our adolescence. She still stays up late, I go to bed early, she always tells me I am going too slowly, and I tell her to slow down. We have spent a lifetime developing and perfecting all of the traits that irritate the other to death. During one of the many times we were made to sit staring at each other after a shouting match, (my mother was a cruel disciplinarian with a sick sense of humor) I remember thinking “wait till I get older, I can’t wait to get away from her!”
Thirty years later, even though we do live 2 ½ hours apart by plane, we can’t get rid of each other. Because like most people who grow up in a house with a sibling, we learned that the other’s peculiar is familiar. The other’s abnormal behaviors are normal and ordinary. I know exactly what she will say before she says it and many times we burst out laughing without saying anything at all. And of course we have each other to reminisce on how mean and unreasonable my parents were to the both of us, especially when we were teenagers. I guess looking back that was a fundamental part of growing up and learning the power of compromise.
Thanks, Mia (Even though I still think I am the favorite).