sisterly firsts

everybody asks what it is like having a twin sister.

imagine having your best friend with you all the time.

imagine being able to talk about anything and everything,

and she understands because she lives your life.

this statement is entirely true, because i have something

imperative to tell her every other second.

this year has been hard because the longest we have ever spent apart was this summer.

in nineteen years, the longest we had ever been apart was two weeks.

until this summer when i left her in logan the first weekend in may,

and didn't see her again until the middle of august.

hardest three and a half months of my life.

but, heaven knows it was a trial run of what my mission is going to be like.

as a kid, the teacher asks you who your best friend is,

and my answer was always rae.

i didn't have many "best friends" in school,

but rae was always there.

we walked through life together.

we started elementary school together.

we walked through the doors to middle school together.

high school was an adventure we took on together.

college was a life changer we supported each other through.

 i can't imagine walking onto a plane by myself,

meeting my future without her.

i'm tearing up just thinking about it.

firsts are always something we supported each other through.

rae got her first glasses and i was there to tell her she looked good in them.

rae judged me as i tried on my first colorguard uniform.

we were in the car together when we took our newly issued permits for the first spin.

we entered the temple together on our first time.

our first cross country drive was together.

and so many more.

but there are some firsts i haven't shared with her,

and firsts she hasn't shared with me.

i can't share or talk with her about the experiences of being endowed.

i can't show her the feelings i have about the people that i worked with this summer.

there are some feelings that i can't show her and it hurts.

i can't talk with her about her boyfriend,

because i've never had one.

i can give her advice based on the things i have seen from her life.

i am that voice of reason in the back of her head

that says "five dates before you bring him to meet the family."

the voice that says "i approve" and makes the relationship legit.

she trusts me, and i trust her.

there are so many things i want to share with her about the things i saw

in the temple, but i can't talk to her about them, mostly because

she can't go there with me. and it's killing me.

and there is nothing more in the world that i want than to share that with her.

there are so many beautiful things in the temple that i want to discuss

and she can't do it with me.

sure, i have my mom or my dad, or my wonderful family.

but i want my sister.

we will always be best friends.

we will always be the ones we turn to for advice.

but we are our own person and this is where the road takes us apart for a time.

but the roads run parallel, and we will be together. forever.

my mom always encouraged us to be our own person.

we never walked around in matching outfits.

coordinating, maybe, but never matching.

we were given the option: 

band or orchestra?

red or green?

vanilla or chocolate?

alone or together?

and in many ways, we are complete opposites.

i loved band. rae thrived at orchestra.

i love red, rae prefers the cooler color of green.

i love vanilla, she loves the chocolate heart attack of rocky road.

i love the silence of being alone, rae loves the social life.

but we dragged each other into each others lives.

rae drug me into so many dumb social activities that i ended up loving.

i got rae to enjoy vanilla bean ice cream.

but, we still support each other in our differences.

orchestra concerts are terribly boring, but i went.

rae went to football games for the social aspect, but loved to watch me perform.

we compliment each other.

we are each other's person.

she's my person.