Starting at a young age I desperately wanted to be just like my older sister, and I seemed to followed her footsteps in almost everything. I wanted all the same teachers she had and wanted to do all the sports or activities she did. I always thought being in the same sport and on the same team as my sister would be one of the best things. It just so happened that throughout all the years growing up, there was one sport that we kept in common: swimming.

It wasn’t until I was in seventh grade that we started swimming and competing with each other. I was going to be in the same group with the same workouts, the same friends and the same practices as her, the only difference being that I was three years younger than she was.

At the time of my first few practices I was already one of the youngest ones in the group. I was a seventh grader racing against competitors up to the age of 18. The older swimmers already had a reason to dislike me, since I was a new swimmer. I thought Madison would have an even bigger reason not to like me now too.

For about a year I wasn’t challenging her in speed at all, I was more or less just there. She was faster than me and nothing was wrong with that. After that first year I started to drop a lot of time in my events and swim at a faster pace in practice. Before I knew it, I was swimming the same pace as her.

When I started catching up to her it was probably the most difficult time between us because we had never been so close in speed, and it was probably hard to have a younger sister that was swimming just as fast as you. I’ll admit, I thought it was pretty cool for me, but I felt really bad for Madison. If I were in her position, I would hate to have a younger sister that swam just as fast as me.

All of a sudden, everything between us changed. I was probably overreacting, but I was scared to say anything to Madison because I thought she always had something against me. Car rides became an awkward 15 minutes of silence four times a day, and we hardly ever spoke to each other at home.

Our relationship slowly started to go more downhill, and we started drifting away from each other. I found myself hating the stupidest things about her. I hated the way she breathed when she swam, the way she held up her fingers to show how many 100’s we had left, the way she used her blinker when changing car lanes, the way she accelerated after being stopped at a stoplight and so many more little things that shouldn’t have mattered.

It wasn’t until the end of summer before my start in high school that I decided I had enough of the tension between us because I missed my sister. A sport should not be keeping us apart. One day we attempted to sort out our problems, but our relationship didn’t really change much.

Later this year, something just clicked between us. We just started talking and we’ve have better friends ever since. The best part of it all is having her right there in the pool with me. Something had changed between us. Maybe it’s because we have the same lunch and we sit together so that we can’t ignore each other. Maybe it’s because I know I’m going to miss her once she leaves for college this summer. Maybe it’s because I’ve finally realized how much I need her in my life. Honestly though, I don’t care what the reason, I’m just glad we’re sisters and not strangers.

For the longest time I wanted us to be separate, but now I realize how special it is to have your sibling right there with you. It’s something that should be cherished because not many people get the same opportunity. Sometimes it can be a love/hate relationship though, such as when I want to beat her in a race, but at the same time I want her to do well. One of the most difficult things to work with are my successes; I have to be very careful about how I react towards them around her. I don’t want it to seem like I’m bragging about the success that she may not be having. It can be difficult sometimes, but we have to learn to appreciate who we have while they’re still there because one day they will be gone.