I’ve never been a good sleeper, so most nights I read before bed, let my eyes get tired and turn off the light to lie awake for a while, my mind wandering. I don’t have the problem of racing thoughts, just a kind of meandering that generally keeps me up tossing and turning long after my partner and the dog start sawing logs in my ear. Often, I start thinking about my family, or my future wedding vows, or something else that manages to get tears welling in my eyes and dripping down onto the pillow. Something about that sleepy thoughtful hour before I drift off gets me emotional.
Last night I started thinking about my little sister, who will turn 18 in a few weeks.
I am the second oldest of four, all of us spread out over 31 years. I was ten when my little sister was born, eleven when my little brother was, and with my older sister already out of the house and leading an adult life, I assumed the role of eldest child and mom’s right hand. I learned to crochet and helped with my sister’s baby blanket, pored over baby books from the library (it had, after all, been ten years since my mom had last been pregnant), attended most of her appointments. I loved learning about babies, loved feeling like my mom’s partner in crime.
I remember distinctly that I did not want younger siblings. In a Disney princess-themed journal I had in first grade, one of the last pages granted me 3 wishes, one of which was for NO BABY BROTHER OR SISTER! I don’t remember my mom telling me she was pregnant, but by then I guess a switch had flipped and I was excited. My older sister and I had not yet developed a close relationship, being in such different stages of our lives, and so at that point I was living more or less like an only child. I had many imaginary friends, especially after the kids next door moved away, and though we had three dogs I was obsessed with, they weren’t exactly the same as siblings or friends.
On the day my little sister was born, my aunt picked me up from school – my mom was in labor. Despite living in the upper Midwest, I have always remembered that day as having hurricane weather (lol). It was early spring, windy and stormy. I don’t think my mom was in active labor long, or at least it didn’t seem that way for me. I was in the delivery room while she pushed, sneaked a peak at my baby sister crowning and promptly buried my face in a chair in the corner of the room. I wouldn’t say I was traumatized, but I was ten years old, so, y’know. Bit of a shock. And then my sister was born, and the way she cried, we immediately associated with a squirrel. Now, living in a veritable squirrel warzone, I stand by this. The doctor probably said something about her having good strong lungs. Her sex was a surprise and we were over the moon – I suggested her name based on one of my favorite Nickelodeon shows.
My fourth grade teacher, who was either expecting his first child or had just recently become a father, was tickled by my excitement. I remember coming back to school after my sister was born, and Mr. Kirst presenting me with a gift to take home, a couple of teeny tiny onesies for my new baby sister. Back at school, I probably talked about my big sister duties endlessly.
Being a big sister was a role I didn’t know I would love so much. It was, then and now, a kind of motherhood that fills me with such an intense mama bear instinct. I was the helicopter parent in our household, probably. I took very seriously the responsibility of helping raise and care for this new little person, and I still do. That seriousness doubled with the birth of my little brother a year and change later, but by then I was an old pro at changing diapers and supporting wobbly little necks.
Ten years is a significant gap between siblings. There are very few years there where playing together comes naturally, especially when you’re an anxious control freak big sister. While my little brother and sister, borderline Irish twins, have been close as long as I can remember, my little sister has always been fiercely independent in a way that was often at odds with that same trait in me.
Now that she is entering adulthood and the dynamic of our relationship has had time to change and grow – starting to drive, a first job, a first boyfriend all experiences that shifted her from kid sister to person-who-is-my-sister in my mind – I can feel us entering a new era. The same shift happened with me and my big sister; learning to relate to someone whose diapers you once changed as they become an adult is quite a trip.
As girls and young women are wont to do, there was a time when my sister was in her tweens and early teens when I thought: this person is a monster, we will never be able to have a conversation that doesn’t end in an argument, puberty was invented in hell, etc. I have no doubt my big sister felt the same about me. And then, as most things do, that difficult time passed, and both our brains made room for a relationship to bloom.
In the last year or two alone, she has come to confide in me from time to time, to give me sneak peeks into her interior life, to show, if not always tell, who she is and what she cares about. Where, a few years ago, I once worried about what her adult life would look like (going through high school during the pandemic, I believe fully, has set up an entire generation for obstacles we are only beginning to understand) and scrabbled for any information she’d give me about her post-grad plans. By sixteen or seventeen, I was already an anxious mess, attempting to meticulously plan my future. My sister was having more fun, planning less, and it filled me with panic on her behalf. Lo and behold, she has figured things out in her own time, as all of us do. The place in my heart that was once full of worry and anxiety is now replaced with trust and pride.
I can’t compare sisterhood to motherhood, but in my gut I have always held them in a similar category. It is borderline impossible for me to compute that 18 years have passed since my little sister came shrieking into our world. The child she was and the young woman she has become have given me so much – certainly more than I could have guessed when I was scribbling out wishes to never ever have any baby siblings.
I don’t have an outro – I’m just in my feelings. To my baby sister on her upcoming big day: I love you so much and I am so proud of you. To all sisters, little and big: may all that insane, incompatible energy find a place to rest and allow something beautiful to grow.