the power of being a sister

i was raised as the oldest of five children, which meant i entered life with a title i never applied for and responsibilities i never fully understood. somewhere between helping with younger siblings, being expected to know better, and serving as the cautionary tale or role model depending on the day, i learned that being a sibling is not simply a relationship. it is an identity.

for most of my childhood, i took that identity for granted. siblings were just there. they occupied seats at the dinner table, stole clothes, borrowed things without asking, annoyed me relentlessly, and somehow always knew exactly which buttons to push. i assumed every family looked like mine. i assumed everyone had people who shared their history so completely that entire stories could be communicated through a glance across a room.

it wasn't until adulthood that i began to understand what a rare gift that actually is.

there are very few people in this world who know where you came from. i do not mean where you were born or what school you attended. i mean the people who remember the house you grew up in, the version of your parents that existed thirty years ago, the holidays before traditions changed, the fears you had before you learned how to hide them, and the dreams you carried before the world taught you what was practical.

siblings know those things because they lived them too.

what fascinates me most is that despite growing up in the same family, no two siblings seem to emerge with the same story. we are shaped by many of the same events, yet somehow we each carry different memories, different interpretations, and different scars. one child remembers freedom while another remembers responsibility. one remembers laughter while another remembers tension. one remembers feeling protected while another remembers feeling overlooked.

for years i thought one of us had to be right.

now i think adulthood is realizing we all are.

families are complicated because people are complicated. every child is raised by a slightly different version of the same parents, in a slightly different moment in time, under slightly different circumstances. what felt like one childhood was actually several happening simultaneously.

perhaps that is one of the greatest lessons siblings teach us. they remind us that truth is often bigger than our own perspective.

they also teach us something about love.

not the polished, romantic version of love we spend so much time talking about, but the stubborn version. the version that survives arguments, distance, misunderstandings, changing political opinions, different lifestyles, different priorities, and years where life gets busy and nobody calls enough.

there is something remarkable about loving people who have seen nearly every version of you and continuing to choose each other anyway.

my siblings knew me before i became a mother. before i built a career. before heartbreak, success, failure, grief, or growth reshaped me into the woman i am today. they knew me when i was simply a girl trying to figure things out. and while so much of life has changed since then, there is something comforting about knowing there are still people walking around this earth who remember the beginning.

as i get older, i find myself appreciating that more and more.

friendships are chosen and marriages are built, but siblings are witnesses. they stand at the intersection of your past and present, carrying pieces of your story that nobody else can hold. they remember details you've forgotten. they challenge memories you've rewritten. they remind you who you were when life feels heavy and who you have always been beneath the titles, responsibilities, and expectations.

the power of being a sibling is not found in always being close or always agreeing. it is found in the quiet understanding that no matter where life takes each of you, your stories will forever be intertwined. there are chapters that belong to all of you, moments that cannot be fully told without one another, and a history that exists nowhere else except in the people who lived it beside you.

in a world where so much changes, there is something profoundly comforting about the people who remember where it all began.