Big Sister Lessons

Welcome back to Taylor Talks!

Tonight's post is a lesson dedicated to all of the older siblings out there. Whether you're the oldest child in your family, or you're somewhere in the middle, I'm talking to you if you have younger siblings. Specifically, I'm talking about if you have younger siblings the same gender as you.

I'm the oldest in my family, so I've always had younger siblings. It's fun to show them off when they're little, and to convince them it's fun to get stuff for you (because you're lazy) when they're somewhat bigger. Younger siblings are great for a lot of things, actually... You always have an excuse to go Trick or Treating (you're just dressing up to make the little kids happy, of course), and an excuse to go see the latest animated movie (hey, those kids can't drive themselves you know). You always have someone to drag to a store with you when you don't want to go alone, and you always have a reason to aim higher and do better in life because you always have someone looking up to you. Having younger siblings is great.

Once your siblings start hitting those teenage years though, having a younger sibling can sometimes just turn into a pain. My sister is five years younger than me, and while she used to admire everything I said, once she hit those teen years she also started getting her own opinions on things. Suddenly, it didn't matter what I thought about a song, or a shirt. It didn't matter if I wanted the bigger cookie, because she now wanted it too. It didn't matter if I wanted to push off cleaning the bathroom on her, because she hated cleaning now too. It wasn't so easy to get along all of the time once she could make up her own mind and talk back to me. I'm sure a lot of older siblings realize this along the way.

Back in New York, I shared a bedroom with all three of my sisters. Let me be the first to tell you: living in a room with twins is not easy. I'm pretty sure that even if they were older (and not waking up at 6:00am screeching as they play) it would still be difficult. They're twins; they're in their own little bubble and they do their own thing together, no matter who else is in the room. But especially since they're only five, it was hard to live in a room with the twins. Toys were always everywhere, it was always loud and crazy, and every time you turned around you could find someone crying.

Now that we've moved to our new house in Florida though, the twins have one bedroom, my brother has his own room (lucky duck), and my sister and I share a room by ourselves. We spent the entire drive down the east coast alone with each other, well, aside from having the dogs in the back seat that is. We've done many store runs together since moving in, we've worked together to (kinda sorta almost) unpack all of the boxes in our room and put things away, and we've bonded over eating lunch together while we escape the chaos of the house with an episode of How I Met Your Mother. We've been doing a lot just the two of us, and it's been really nice.

My lesson to all of you older siblings is that you should't dismiss your younger brother or sister just because they start forming their own opinions and getting on your nerves. Do my sister and I still argue? Absolutely! Do we get on each others' nerves? Of course! But having a bedroom to ourselves and spending so much time together over the past few weeks has really brought us closer together. I've realized how appreciative I am to have her here with me as I explore this new town and get used to this new house. Don't get me wrong, since I'm writing this I'll probably end up getting into a huge fight with her tomorrow, since that's usually how things go. But I'm still glad that we're in this adventure together and I have someone to argue with whenever we want. Having a sibling is the best gift you could ever receive in life. Nothing's perfect, and it's normal to have differences and not get along all of the time, but in the end, having a sibling to go through life with is completely worth all of the little bickering. I absolutely love all of my siblings, but this move has definitely made me appreciate my sister, in particular, a whole lot more.

Thank you so much for your continued support! I look forward to sharing more stories about my experience with foster care, and hopefully hearing from readers who have questions or similar stories to share. I'm always willing to answer questions and hear about other experiences! Please don't forget to like and share my Facebook author page as well!

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Thanks!
Taylor

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