Enjoy your day, sister!

Tomorrow will be the twenty-fourth birthday of my one and only sibling, Jackelyn. She is a unique woman that I have so little in common with on the immediate surface, but a greatly shared bond in everything that is of significant meaning to me. It is only presently becoming easier to view her as a mature woman, now that I am spending the sixth of her last seven natal celebrations apart from her; viewing her maturation from afar. Throughout this period (and our entire lives), I have been fortunate to be given every opportunity to succeed and pursue my dreams while she has been forced to encounter numerous hardships and misfortunes. Selfishly, I rarely stop to think of everything she has accomplished and done despite these unwanted restrictions. Instead, I usually get lost in my next careless adventure or meaningless accomplishment and unknowingly gloat, while she is living with and helping to care for my wonderful parents...not to mention my grandmother, who is currently amidst some difficult health issues. She has chosen this path of nurture and familial concern despite her past of irrational behavior, and I have somewhat narcissistically chosen to unintentionally distance myself from those desired traits despite my past of apparently rational behavior. Are we simply following deeply embedded gender roles? I am not too sure nor concerned, I suppose. I just know I owe to her a great deal of gratitude that, at most times in our lives, has not been displayed. So, thank you Jackie and have a great birthday (I wish I could be there to spend it with you, but you know I can’t stand that small town of ours!)!