Twenty-one years ago,August 9, 1986, at 7:30 am, my sister Sarah (in my Mom’s words) “rammed her way into the world.” Which, if you know Sarah, is a very appropriate beginning. The day before, we’d trooped (waddled?) to downtown Watertown in the August humidity so that I could be checked over for lice. That night at 1:30, labor started, at 7:30, there was a baby, much to my mother’s relief who probably had some fears that her labor with me (that lasted 36 hours) might be repeated (sorry Mom). I remembered it as the day I lost my favorite Cabbage Patch Doll and replaced Freeda Mae with a screaming infant. I responded by coming down with Pneumonia for the next few months, just to show my annoyance.

Despite the childhood angst, I really loved my sister. Of course there were those times of discord, I vaguely remember several door slamming incidents where Sarah’s three year old fingers somehow found their way between the door and the door frame. I don’t know how. And the fact that she’d find my journals and proclaim trivia about my life ALOUD, and mess up my stuff, and throw temper tantrums like no other. She’d yell and scream, run into the bathroom and talk to herself, and five minutes later everything was… fine. Temper tantrums like summer lightning storms were her specialty.

Then she got older and I realized I really liked her. Liked her as a person, liked talking with her, liked running with her (okay, that took a while!), liked laughing hysterically with her, liked baking and eating chocolate chips with her. Sometimes we would stand in front of the mirror looking at our differences and similarities (and there are far more differences despite the common cry of “Oh, you two could be TWINS!”). I will always take pride in the fact that I will always be just a little taller. Ha!

I have fond memories of sister camping trips, laying on the beach, and driving on the PCH with the sunset on our left and FM Static blaring out the window. We share brown hair that turned curly in high school, a penchant to obsess about things, the feeling that we’re never quite good enough, and the deep desire to be loved. We both feel deeply, we both like to write, and we both gravitate towards songs that resonate with what we feel at the moment. We have our differences too, like our differing opinion as to how a good grilled cheese sandwich is cooked, our disagreement on the genre of rap and hip hop music, and the fact that Sarah will often tell you exactly what she’s thinking and feeling while I get tripped up with things like, well, like being polite and decorum and tact. Which has, on occasion, made me feel like she’s the proverbial bull in the china shop and I just happen to get there a moment too late with the dustpan. But hey, life is never boring, right?

And now she’s 21 and celebrating her newly aquired “adult” age. I wish I could be there tonight, Sarah, with my jello shot or Smirnov or whatever the heck Brian has managed to rig up for the evening. You’re the best sister I have and my favoritest sister in the whole wide world. I love you!