To The Sisters Who Teach Us How To Be Vulnerably Strong

Thank you for teaching me how to admit my mistakes properly without excessive attitude, episodes of denial, or constant cold shoulder moments. You taught me about empowerment in things I once thought showed more weakness than strength. Thank you for letting me express everything I feel without any judgment. Thank you for introducing me to your world of charity and immense kindness for other people as it wouldn’t have taught me to become a better person.

Thank you for every lesson you’ve lead on embracing our sensitive side in all of us and on how it’s okay to admit that you’ve been offended by a joke not being taken lightly, how to manage every single emotion that runs through our everyday lives by facing whichever comes and not to run from it, and making me believe how beautiful vulnerability can really be. Before you were born, I was a lost little girl who did not know how to express what was wrong and how she was feeling in a proper and pleasant way. My hurt feelings would turn into rage, verbal abuse, and reckless behavior I still feel uncomfortable looking back on. Thank you for correcting my constant desire of being known as the strong one and instead showing me what it really had to take to be that.

You have set a valuable example of where true strength comes from. You have taught me on how the things that this world considers a weakness, is actually strength.

You have shown me that having compassion and simply a caring heart for somebody other than yourself shows more strength than I could have possibly imagined. To also see the best in others rather than preparing yourself to see the worst is another thing I will always wonder how you do it. The way you confront a problem or an argument head on always inspires me to try it too. You are the absolute definition of a queen in the making. You may be shy when it comes to performing in front of our family at parties or meeting new people but you have no mercy when it comes to injustice in our society.

You are the most perfect example for girls of your generation to follow. You are the hope that your generation actually has a chance to be better than the last one, the flicker of light for teenage girls to know that they have a voice too, and proof to a society who likes to underestimate the inborn or gradually developed survival intelligence and skill that you and your friends secretly have had all this time but choose not to not to let the rest of us know.

I knew I never wanted to be the only child in our parents’ lives. I knew I wanted you as a sibling, but I did not know that you would become my friend.

My forever friend.