For Meggie

You could say my sister, Megan, and I are different flowers from the same garden.  On first impression most people think we're as opposite as two people can be.  Night and day, introvert and extrovert. She needs to be involved in the action while I'm content taking it in from the sidelines. She likes tall dark and handsome, I lean towards "artsy" (of course this was a blessing growing up, as we never had to fight over the boy-everyone I thought was "dreamy" she found weird and vice versa).  Most people who meet us call us liars when we say we're even related (for those of you who don't know us both, I look like I was very possibly adopted into our family while she is the spitting image of my mother).

The teenage years

We spent the majority of our teenage years focusing on all of these differences and terrorizing each other for them.  Most of the time we couldn't get along to save our lives. Instead of gossiping and doing all of the girly things together, we acted like each other didn't exist.  To be honest, we were just being typical teenagers, and in a home where there was an overload of estrogen and not a lot of testosterone to balance it out our emotions ran rampant (even our pets were all female, and we had quite a few pets through the years...but that's a different story).

We may have been at different schools, but she still knows who to cheer for :)

We ended up picking colleges that were in the words of my mother "as far apart as you could get from each other while still remaining in the same state".  Strangely, the distance is what changed things. We each matured and grew up a little on our own without the constant comparison of our differences, and became who we are today.  After I graduated school, we ended up by fortune back in our parents home living together.  It had been 6 years since this phenomenon had last occurred, and the parents were understandably dreading it.  But something amazing had happened. All of the differences we perceived in the past became similarities.  Neither of us had changed as far as taste, hobbies, lifestyle, or personality, but our perspective had flipped. Now we saw the positive things in our differences that actually linked us. I may be shy and she outgoing, but instead of a source on contention it became a tool. We could feed and grow from each other to become better, more fulfilled people.  The way sisters should be. To everyone's surprise, we ended up successfully living together for an entire year in our own condo (sans parental supervision), and nobody died or was seriously injured!  

The big 2-6

Today, my beautiful, intelligent, amazing sister turns 26 and I couldn't be more proud of her or more content with our relationship.  It might have taken a while to get here, but the journey was more than worth it. The things you have to work hardest for mean the most to you in the end, and man was this a trip! She has gone to the dreaded "big sister" to my source of laughter, comfort, a shoulder to lean on, and most importantly a best friend. Our differences brought us together and has created an exceptional bond. The kind of bond only sisters can have. 

I love you and am so proud of you! I saw the following quote and thought it fit perfectly so I'll leave you with this:
 

"Sister to Sister we'll always be a couple of nuts off the family tree"