Appreciating a younger sister

By the age of 10, all except one of my sister's friends were taller than me. They towered over me while shyly introducing themselves. "You must be her big sister! Are you still in middle school?" Had I not been born more than half a decade before my sister, the answer would have been yes, and friendly conversation would have ensued. Unfortunately, I had been, which made the answer no and turned the situation into an awkward silence.

Since then, I've assumed that my sister would eventually face similar dilemmas, but she's entirely eliminated that possibility within the span of two weeks. She's shot up and left me three inches (and counting) behind. She's left me behind in other ways as well, though. While I've not been at home for a couple years now, it was not until recently that I began to feel the clichéd "pang of loss" typically associated with empty-nesters. This year, my sister began high school.

Middle school and high school are separated by only one year, but that year makes quite a difference. Half the kids in middle school still view public handholding between opposite genders as something scandalous. Many of them wear braces with lime green rubber bands, and all of them still rely on parents as their only form of transportation. In high school, girls barely older than my sister cruise around in their silver Lexus SUVs with vanity license plates, cell phone clutched in one hand, mascara in the other. Guys and girls no longer stand at opposite sides of the gym at school dances, but instead mingle together and mingle hard.

Even without including the external social pressures, my sister has grown up, changed and become more mature than I am. She willingly passes up shopping and movie dates with friends because her schedule is "full." If I call home for more than five minutes, she'll politely mention that she has schoolwork, wait for me to finish scoffing at her, and then hang up.

I worry that I will and have been increasingly losing contact with my sister. When my parents first brought her home, jealousy coursed through my veins, but that jealousy slowly waned once I realized what power I held over her. She allowed me to boss her around mercilessly and tried desperately to curry favor with me. She slipped "so soly" notes with stick figure drawings of two smiling people underneath my door whenever I screamed at her for annoying me. She read books that I liked and wore clothes that I picked out for her.

After her first full day of school, she came back home with a detailed listing of her day, waiting for my nod of approval after each item.

Now, she no longer needs or wants my approval. She turns in homework without first showing it to me, and provides information about her friends (namely, their home addresses) only when I have to pick her up. For birthdays and holidays, she now gives store bought gifts carefully wrapped with a bow on top instead of squashy Play-Doh creatures and hand-sewn mini bean bags with used wrapping paper taped across. She's her own person now. But I still wonder if she's adjusting to her new school and if the teachers there are actually teaching or just reading out of a textbook. I worry about whether her new friends are just dragging her around to places to have another person around or if they're actually being nice to her and will secretly decorate her locker with wrapping paper, streamers and balloons the night before her birthday. I hope her running times will continue to improve after every cross country meet, but I fret that she'll soon twist her ankle or develop shin splints.

My sister still lives with my parents, so it makes very little sense for me to worry, but I still do. As silly and clichéd as it is, I miss the little sister I once actually had. It saddens (and irritates) me that she will never again be smaller and shorter than me, nor obey me with wide-eyed trust. It saddens me the most, however, that she may never again need me quite as much as I need her. Anna Huang is an ORFE major from Westlake, Ohio. She can be reached at ajh@princeton.edu.