Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about sisterhood, and how strange it feels when the people you once shared every corner of your life with suddenly aren’t under the same roof anymore.
Three sisters, all creatives, all with the same slightly dramatic, slightly introverted, deeply imaginative personalities. Growing up in a home where our relationship with our parents wasn’t the strongest, we kind of raised each other.
We were each other’s safety nets, mirrors, hype women, and built-in best friends.
Growing up, our dynamics were always so obvious and honestly kind of funny. I have a sister that is closer in age and one that is much younger so both of us naturally became these different versions of parental figures for her.
The youngest ended up absorbing some of my opinionated, passionate, fiery so I naturally fell into that role as the unapologetic, free-spirited and cool oldest sister.
And then from my second-oldest sister, she picked up the opposite side of the spectrum, she was responsible, serious, steady energy but incredibly hilarious and quirky. Even with those differences, we were all close in our own ways.
My youngest sister ended up being the perfect mix of the both of us. It’s pretty interesting.
And then life did what life always does, it pulled us into different directions.
The second oldest was the first to leave. She packed up and moved to New York in October 2019, chasing the life she always dreamed about. And honestly, she fits there. She’s always had that New York energy, independent, ambitious, a little mysterious. I’m happy for her.
I really am. But it doesn’t stop me from missing the feeling of knowing she’s just in the next room, asking if I want to watch a really funny movie with her or help her rehearse her lines for a play or any project she was working on.
Then a few months later, the youngest and the baby of the family left. My baby. She moved to Orlando to live with her boyfriend. That transition hit me in a different way because we were all sharing an apartment together prior to them leaving.
Our routines became woven together, grocery runs, complaining about adulting, laughing at stupid dank memes at 1 AM. Then suddenly… silence. Empty rooms. A kind of quiet that feels heavy instead of peaceful.
After they both left, I decided to move in with my long time best friend, which softened the blow, but the absence of my sisters was still there.
A year later, in October 2020 I got married and moved in with my husband, starting a completely new chapter of my own. It’s beautiful, it’s exciting, and I’m grateful, but I still feel nostalgia for the old days. When things were more simple. When my sisters and I were still together.
This is the part of adulthood nobody warns you about… how growing up means growing apart, even when the love stays the same.
How you can be happy for everyone and still feel a little sad for yourself.
How the people who shaped you the most end up living whole lives that don’t intersect with yours every day anymore.
I moved to Tampa, so the youngest isn’t too far, and that makes it a little easier. But my second oldest sister… she’s all the way in New York, living this new independent life.
She’s isolated from us physically, but she seems genuinely happy, and that’s all I want for her. Even if it means missing her more than I expected to.
Sometimes I wish we could freeze time and go back to those years when we were all under one roof, cooking, laughing, venting, creating, complaining, dreaming.
Not even because we are all building out own worlds now, but honestly, sometimes I wish we were at least in the same town, if we can’t all be in the same house, just close enough to feel like the distance isn’t so wide.
At least the bond is still there, stretched across cities, held together by memory, love, and the kind of connection only sisters who survived the same household can understand.
We visit when we can, and somehow that keeps the thread alive.It just feels weird, that’s all.
Just weird, and a little sad for me.
Honestly, Vanessa 