Sisterhood is total vulnerability from the very beginning. We don’t guard ourselves like we do everyone else; in fact, there is something so beautifully un-self conscious about it. We aren’t trained on how to interact together, and so sisterly love, it’s ferocious and it’s cruel and it’s relentless. It’s knowing that she would take a bullet for me, and also brutally murder me if she saw me wearing her clothes without permission. And while I struggle to believe in many things, I do believe in the power of sisterhood. A lot of love has an expiration date, whether it’s friendships that fade over time or relationships that don’t last, but sisterly love is different. I loved her before I even knew why or what love was, and I still loved her even after figuring out that I didn’t always like her. She was the one constant companion in my life, while also the most unreliable play mate ever. She was simultaneously the first best friend and enemy I ever made. She taught me everything I know about love and hate. Emphasis on hate. We used to fight all the time when we were younger; our relationship was built on non stop bickering and painful hair pulling. I played the role of the younger sister exceptionally well, always pissing her off with my never tiring arsenal of annoying taunts and remarks that instigated most of our fights. But as well as I thought I had my role down, she was equally as good at the older sibling finishes the fight with her fist act. Her tactics were to skip all the verbal fighting that I reveled in and just start kicking me in the shins, or launch her fists at my arms and shove me out of her room. Then my move every time was to start crying in an attempt to guilt trip her into feeling bad for what she had done. This never worked. Instead, this is when one of my parents would rush angrily upstairs to see what all the commotion was. Like clockwork, after my parents saw my tears and began to yell at my sister for hurting me, I would immediately start telling them that nothing happened. In fact, I would beg them not to get my sister in trouble, wiping my tears away and insisting that I was fine. That she hadn’t done anything for them to get upset about. And my sister never asked me to do this; in fact, it pissed her off whenever I pleaded her innocence to my parents, but that didn’t matter. The point was that even though we were fighting, when it came down to it, I would defend her no matter what. It’s just how I was wired. I had a sense of awareness that we were stuck together, and even if she couldn’t stand me and never played with me, I knew that I would do anything for her. Because that is the nature of being a sister. One moment you are kicking them and screaming that you wish you were an only child and the next moment you are giving them half of your candy because she is your sister and you would willingly go a little hungry to share in life’s sweetness.