We kept close through out her studies abroad and even lived together again in London back in 2010. She was always there, beside all of us. Whilst all sorts of family issues were concocting back at home or somebody else had hurt my feelings. She has always been my support whenever a storm comes my way, no matter how small the problem is. My sister is my only friend with my best interests truly at heart.
When we were young and naive, our differences were relevant to us. She was the girly girl and I was the tomboy. With a four year age gap there were awkward dissimilarities. For instance when she was falling in love, I was still being one of the boys. It was when I turned ten we started to connect more and the relevance of our taste and disimilar personalities became vague and unimportant. Slowly as I grew up into a difficult teenager, she understood me better than my other family members and knew me better than my friends.
This summer my sister relocated to New Zealand, where we were both born. She lives there now with her lovely boyfriend and together they are starting a new story of their own. New friends, new jobs, new homes and new adventures. I am somewhat jealous of her opportunity and her courage to be on the other side of the world. However technically, I am on the foreign side and she is where we came from.
Distance has not bothered me before. I have friends all over the world, people that I will never forget and hope that I will forever be in touch with. My sister proved me wrong this year. I struggle everyday to calm myself and remember that she is only a video chat, phone call, email or post card away. Not that I would demand cuddles regularly (or at all, I am not fond of affection, most of the time)
When we were younger I use to crawl into my sisters bed and sleep next to her. It started when we lived in Japan. I still don't understand why I felt the need to, from what I can remember I had problems sleeping and being close to her helped me settle down. Perhaps part of me has an urge to be close to her again, a proximity even video chat cannot achieve. Distance is distressing, if I knew she was situated down the road, I would not miss her.
But, I do miss her.
I miss her antic spirit, her identical voice to mine and the scrunched up face she pulls when the sun is too bright for her eyes. All the little things that you don't see on webcam. I am also missing her hugs. She wraps her arms around your neck and clings on. If you let her, she'll press her face against your cheek and smile. I think I use to do that a lot when I was little and she never stopped the routine.
Hopefully in the next year I will fly out to New Zealand and maybe in a couple years time I will stay with her for a while, if she is still there. For now I will have to make do with her typed out jokes and jumbled video catch ups (mainly consisting of us chatting about Joey and Lyla) She is still my rock, my safety net, my sister.
