Sisters

You can't outgrow your siblings. You can abandon your family if you're desperate enough to get away from them, but there is never a day when you stop seeing your sister or brother as the creep who got into your toys and pulled your hair. Even if you get along with your siblings, this is true. A friend may be closer than a brother, but a sister can never be distant as a friend.

With a sister, any adult failures can be directly traced back to childhood faults. There is no presumption of innocence with a sister as there might be with a friend, because a sister knows you too well to believe you're not in a life-long conspiracy to make her miserable.

My sister and I were always antagonistic growing up. I don't know exactly why, but she always considered me an enemy and I saw her as an irrational, unpredictable creature. Since becoming adults, our relationship has gotten better, but somehow, it can never transcend those childhood tropes. We may now eat sushi and drink wine together, but in the back of our minds, we still see each other as the kids who stole each others' French fries from our Happy Meals.

Sisters may eventually learn to appreciate each other but they will always keep a suspicious eye on one another.

In my entire adult life, I can't think of a time my sister was upset with me and it was simply forgiven or explained away. Any misunderstanding is the cause of great offense. With my friends, if I say something that sounds hurtful, I can simply say, "I'm sorry, what I was trying to say was…" and they believe me. That doesn't work with a sister. A sister knows, or thinks she knows, that your hurtful words and actions are simply the continuation of a pattern started at birth. No matter how close you become, how much you appreciate and respect each other, there will always be an unspoken bias against a sister.

The problem is, I believe, that like a spouse, a sibling is a victim of proximity. Siblings are yoked together unwillingly, and without the luxury of retreating when disagreements arise, hurts fester. The result is that any minor pain is felt for years. When I sigh deeply around my sister, she hears a thousand unspoken criticisms. When my sister complains about hurt feelings, I only hear a thousand groundless accusations.

The bottom line is that try as I might, I will never be able to treat my sister like a friend—she's not a friend; sisters are different from friends—but I do hope that I can keep that in mind and make the best of our fraternal relationship. Give me a prayer, if you think of it.