I thought this week I would talk a little about some people in my life I'm thankful for. There's no way in seven days I could mention EVERYONE I'm thankful for. And I've mentioned several people before on this blog. But I thought maybe I could mention a few others.
Monday's Thanksgiving is: my sister, Julia!
Julia is five years younger than I am, and about a hundred times more talented than me. She's pretty amazing--you should hear her sing. I don't think she sings much anymore, but when she does it's amazing. I think she's probably smarter than I am, too....even though she might not know it.
As you can imagine, five years is a pretty big difference. It basically means that from the time she was born, she annoyed me. I was old enough to realize when she was stealing my toys or hogging the attention or giving me chicken pox on my birthday (or was it the other way around?). Then she turned 8 months, started walking, started talking, and became the thorn in my side that existed until college. Harsh, I know....but ask her and she'll tell you it's true.
But the great thing about sisters is that you're blood related. So pretty much, you can't end your relationship over a guy or a fight, or a bad haircut. You're stuck with that person. The best thing, I found, was making the relationship grow. You can't just cut and run from your sister.
Our relationship began to change around the time of our parents divorce. There are few things that push siblings together more than experiencing such a drastic change in you home. So we stuck together and muddled our way through. We began to find things to talk about, things to relate to. We were only 13 and 8 but we recognized each other as the only other person in the entire world that felt the same way. And we still didn't get along 100% of the time. I still didn't want to, like, hang out with her all the time....but we found some middle ground for the relationship.
Then I moved down south to the motherland for college and things did a total 180 between us. We started hanging out, started talking more. It was amazing what a little distance could do to change us. Once I graduated, got married, and moved back to Edmond it got even better.
Now, she's one of my best friends. She will do anything for me, all I have to do is ask. She'll even come over when I'm at work to let the cable guy in. And every time we're out of town she stays over at our house so our cat, Faith, won't have to sleep alone. Now that is sisterly commitment.
But more than anything, she's a fantastic sounding board for ideas, random thoughts, tears, celebrations. When we put Max to sleep earlier this year, she came over almost every night leading up to that day just to spend time with him. Then she gave me cards and gifts and little things to make me feel better...all while reassuring me that I was making the right decision and that she admired me and that I was a loving person in spite of all that guilt I felt. And even better, she didn't do as much comforting for me as she did just playing with Max and making me feel like someone other than me appreciated him. Then, even though she was out of town on her vacation she spent hours on the phone with me, just letting me cry.
She indulges my random impulses, like taking pictures of every shoe I own so that I can NOT post them on my blog. She gets us free movie rentals. She brings cookies to my office after a rough week. She brings me food when I'm sick. She lets me cook, and then does a great job of lying about how great it was so I'll be encouraged to cook more. She goes shopping with me. She let's me sing Carrie Underwood in the car, even though she hates Carrie Underwood. She's a great gift giver: she gave me tickets to Josh Groban last year, and I think the only other concert in my life that was better was New Kids on the Block when I was 9.
And those are just a FEW things I am thankful for when it comes to Julia. I couldn't ask for a better sister, I really couldn't. And hopefully one day I'll be able to support her and be there for her as much as she is for me. We're kind of an anomaly--it's really more of the little sister taking care of the big sister in our family!
Did I mention the free movie rentals?
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