Happy Birthday Nicoley!

My baby sister turns 20 today! Weird... Sometimes I still think of her as being a little 8-year-old, mostly because I tried to mother her when we were younger. I'm only about 3 and 1/2 years older than her, but for some reason that makes me feel a lot older and responsible for her.

Growing up, it was just the two of us, and boy, could we fight. I was not a nice sister. I attribute this to two things. First, our radically different personalities, and second, the lack of another sibling to go to or to also fight with. Two was just not a good number in our house.

I'm happy to say that now Nicoley and I are the best of friends. She's the one I want to talk to when I'm bored. She's the one I want to hang out with when I have free time. She's the one that I can talk to about pretty much anything. Not living together has been great for us and our relationship. It's funny because when we have to be in close proximity to each other for extended periods of time again, we fall right back into our old habits. We took a three-day trip this last summer to go back home for my cousin's wedding, just the two of us, and we had a blast for the first two and a half days of it but after a full day of driving, a busy wedding day, and another full day of driving, we were mad as hell at each other. We spent the last almost five hours of the drive in absolute silence. It was weird.

Anyway, happy birthday Nicoley. You are the best sister in the world, and I love you so much. I'm so glad that we're friends now and that you laugh with me over the stupidest stuff. We really do need big neon signs on our foreheads to proclaim to the world that we're not crazy, just sisters.