Summer of Sisterhood

**FROM THE VAULT - Originally written on August 13, 2023**

This was a summer of sisterhood. 

Today, as I was emptying the dishwasher at work, I was hit with a profound wave of sadness upon remembering that my sister was leaving DC in just two short weeks. Just as soon as the tears were about to flow, they seemed to retreat. I have to say, preemptive nostalgia is a relatively interesting emotion to have in the middle of a work day. After all, I can't really miss her too much when I knew I would see her in just a few hours after I got home. Throughout the summer, we've had two and a half months of laughter, fights, and mundanity. We have watched tv together almost every night, gone to soccer games, eaten out, and decorated my new apartment. She took me out for ice cream after an enormously shitty day and sat next to me as we awed over each and every dog that walked by. She drove with me to Target simply to walk around. We flew to Canada and hiked and didn't get eaten by a bear. Life reverted back to the normal that my teenage self remembers.

Of course, at the not-quite-ripe ages of 21 and 23, my sister and I have spent more summers together than apart. Never by choice, though, until now. 

There is something so fascinating about spending an extended period of time together with a sibling after living apart for several years. Kate and I have not lived together for longer than a month at a time since early on in the pandemic. Even then, nothing felt truly normal. I was too shrouded in grief, uncertainty, and fear to appreciate the time with family. So I suppose, with that in mind, the normal I had expected for this summer was more akin to warm days spent together at 16 and 18
years old, or 12 and 14, or 6 and 8. Always eighteen months apart. Always more alike in lifestyles than different. 

But we are so different now. I have been living mostly on my own, away from family, for five years now. Kate has been at college for three. In that time, we have been allowed to explore who we are without the other lurking in the shadows, continually watching from a bedroom only steps away. And now that we are back together our habits, both old and new, are working their way back up to the surface. We still bicker and we will have a humor that only the two of us understand. I still talk way more than her. She still
has better eyebrows than me.

As an older sister, I think it is incredibly cool to watch my little sister become her own person. Longtime readers may remember my thank you note to my family, penned a few years ago. In it, I mentioned feeling as though I was always meant to be the younger sister. I have a distinct lack of routine and an enormous need to prove myself. Something that is so common for a middle sibling but so at odds with the ideal image of an older sister. When I think of an older sister, I think of a woman who keeps things in order. A woman who is good at listening. I imagine a woman who does what she does and doesn't care what others may think. Maybe I even imagine someone who brings their sister coffee in bed because they know she is not a morning person. 

Kate brings me coffee in bed. Every morning at 7:20-ish on the dot-ish, I get a warm wake-up-cup-a-joe. She also empties the dishwasher and tidies up the house. She puts on her business casual outfit and grabs her pre-packed lunch and walks through the city to get to her internship. I roll out of bed about 20 minutes before I need to go to work, leaving just enough time to brush my teeth, throw on an outfit, apply some half-hearted makeup, and feed Goose. Lunch for me is always an afterthought, usually relegated to a salad bowl bought from some chain restaurant near my office. Kate definitely is more put together than me. I stand by my assumption that our birth order was somehow cosmically messed up. 

Anyway. . . back to the summer of sisterhood. 

I became acutely aware that this is most likely our last long-term time together about a week ago. Instagram reels have a way of making me sad when I need it the least (don't harass me for using Instagram reels, I deleted TikTok due to a debilitating addiction). In just under a year, she will be graduating college and going off into the world to do whatever spectacular thing she has up her sleeve. After that, I imagine we will never live in the same house together for longer than a few weeks at a time. The passage of time can be cruel like that. After all, you live together with someone 24/7 for over sixteen years, and then you are just expected to grow up and grow separately and be okay with that? It all seems silly to me. I don't like thinking about the consequences of growing up, as we all know. 

So, while my sister is only a few dozen feet away sleeping on my futon, risking her poor spine's health so that we can live together one last time, I sit in my bed writing this little ode to her and our summer. It has been so fantastic, and so normal, and so fun -- for lack of a more creative word. Every night of silence spent watching The Summer I Turned Pretty, every walk around the neighborhood, every trip to Target, and every second spent annoying Goose with our affection has culminated in a summer I am sure I will forever hold close to my heart. 

Hold your loved ones close because sometimes they grow up and sometimes you have your last summer living together, whether you are aware of it or not. 

Also, one year at summer camp I wrote Kate a similarly heartfelt note during a cabin bonding session and she returned the favor by writing, "Sam, I will see you at home" on my card. I am expecting a similar reaction to this post. 

Here's to all the Stink-Stinks of the world. Here is to sisters. Here is to cat-aunts. Here is to bagel breakfast sandwich enthusiast and masterful organizers and adventurous girls climbing every barrier put in their way. Here is to Kate. 

All the love in the world and then some,

Sam