Siblings Change

One of the best parts of my life, hands down, is my relationship with my siblings.

We were thick as thieves growing up, both as individual parts and as a trio. Since I moved away from home, I've only seen them a handful of times when I went home for the holidays. So this Thanksgiving was a special treat.

I got to spend the entire Thanksgiving week with my siblings for the first time in years a couple of weeks ago.

One of the things that struck me - besides the joy of them being with me - was how some things continued as if we'd never left each other, and some things had evolved.

Growing up as the oldest, I always felt a certain responsibility to look out for my siblings. I needed to know where they were when we were out together, and I would constantly extend advice and support.

As we got older, things changed. We moved away from each other, started our own relationships and jobs, and had our own personal struggles. I realized that I can't always take the weight of their lives on my shoulders, so I've tried to pull back, only giving advice if it was asked for and letting them make their own decisions. Focusing a little more on myself has helped me to grow as a person, and I'm sure that having someone who doesn't always nag and bother them about their future and plans has been good for them, as well.

Yet some habits die hard, I've realized. While my siblings and I were out in the city, visiting museums and catching the metro, I found myself constantly checking that I had them both in my eyesight. Never mind that they're 26 and 28, and my brother is a good few inches taller than me.

We also made it a point to play games together - video games, board games, card games. It was so reminiscent of holiday breaks of old, staying up till odd hours, drinking apple cider, and, on Wednesday, baking the pies for Thanksgiving. But this was still different since we needed to go to bed in enough time to be up to head into the city. There was a sense of responsibility that wasn't present in our younger versions, but it was still fun.

One of our childhood traditions was making pancakes for dinner. Using a recipe from my mom's best friend, it started out as Daddy making the whole meal, with us occasionally helping out. Eventually, we all had our assigned parts of the meal to make - mine was the pancakes. So when planning for my sibling's visit, we decided that one of the meals that we would make together was pancakes.

I haven't the foggiest idea what happened, but the two batches we attempted turned out like...this...

We were all baffled, throwing out reasons why it looked like someone had poured evaporated milk over broken-up jello instead of regular batter. We blamed sea salt, using Lactaid milk instead of regular milk...nothing seemed to make sense. So we door-dashed box pancake mix and called it a day, completing the meal with bacon and eggs.

As I thought back on it, I realized that it was an amazing analogy to how sibling relationships can change as you all become adults. Though you may still be close, the progression of life changes the dynamics of the relationships. You have to learn to adapt to different circumstances - distance, significant others, career changes, and more - while still maintaining the bond that we built growing up together. The things that we talk about have changed, but we still reminisce over our childhoods. It makes me laugh how both my sister and I were finding different spots in my small apartment to get some privacy to talk to our respective boyfriends every day, something I had never really thought of growing up.

I don't know when the last time we spent so much time together was, and I'm not sure when we'll be able to do so again. However, I do know that I'll be reliving the memories made during this Thanksgiving for many years to come.