The day after my little sister's first day of existence, my older brother and I were brought to the hospital where she was born to meet her.  I was two years old; a very mature two year old with a healthy appreciation for Snoopy (I wore a Snoopy sweatshirt and plastic sunglasses with little Snoopies above each lens the day I met her).  I don't remember much, but my words from that day are often anecdotally quoted by my family members. "That's one puny baby!,' I apparently said.  

Thinking about the birth of my sister is a little strange for me.  To consider that my sister was born, is also to consider that there was a time when she did not exist. A time when I existed as a person, without her influence.  Despite the fact that I existed for almost a whole three years before she existed, I cannot render a single memory of my life without her.  This makes perfect sense of course because I was young enough when she was born that I have very few memories of my life before her.  It's hard for me to even consider what life was like before her.  

I wonder what kind of person I was before her.  What kind of person I would have been had she not existed.  I imagine that the person I would have been without her existence would look completely different the the person I am now, after living almost my whole life with her.  When I say that I have lived almost my whole life with her, I am not exaggerating.  From her first day home from the hospital, she and I shared a bedroom (I now credit her lungs of steel with my ability to literally sleep through natural disasters--years of training).  When she switched out of a crib and into a bed, it was into a double bed that we shared until I was a sophomore in high school.  As a result, we also shared the experience of her wetting the bed...so, yeah, we're close.  Because we're only three years apart we overlapped one year in the same high school and one year in the same college.  At both schools we participated in similar extracurricular activities and had some fo the same friends.  And now, whenever we're both home from our respective academic pursuits, we spend every waking hour together, shopping, getting coffee, chatting, watching movies, commiserating.  When we're not in the same city we're still one-other's first call for break-ups, first dates, bad days, and academic successes. In short, the words "best friends" simply do not justly represent our relationship.   As sappy as it sounds, we're not best friends, we're soul-mates.  Two vastly different people, living vastly different lives, but sharing one soul.

This is why to fathom my life before her or without her is impossible.  My sister's spunky, vivacious, caring, independent, personality and spirit are so much a part of who I am that I know with absolute certainty that my personality, ways of interacting with my world, life goals, dreams, likes, dislikes, my entire being, would be vastly different were it not for the existence of my soul-mate sister.

I hope you have a soulmate in your life. Without my soulmate, my life would be very different.  It probably wouldn't be nearly as spectacular as it is, and that would suck, because along with loving my sister, I really love my life.  

Keep on thinking,

Josie