sisters

At this very moment, I am having one of those life-defining moments and it feels so incredibly good that for the first time in a long time, I've wanted to come to my blog to talk about it. I realize I have been MIA in a major way - major - and I want to share this piece of my life with you all, and I will. But right now, I'd rather talk about my big sister, Danielle.

D is flippin' amazing and always has been. She could make friends with a door knob, I don't know a single person who doesn't adore her, and she can love like you truly have never seen before. She is 32 years old, exactly 3 years, 1 month, and 24 days older than me. We never got along. Seriously.

D and I are completely different people and grew up experiencing two completely different worlds that we were somehow equally living. And we never, ever saw eye-to-eye on things. But in the past two weeks, something changed. Something so deep and strong and real that at the same time is making my heart skip a beat. My sister, my very only blood sister, my older sister, the girl who was probably so freaking happy when my parents brought me home from the hospital . . . is now my best friend.

Danielle and the cutest little baby in the world, Grant, my nephew, arrived in Montana two weeks ago on a Monday. Please don't ask me the date, I don't have a calendar in front of me and don't feel like looking. They flew in from Denver into Billings, so the girls and I road-tripped it to gather them up. Funny side note . . . everytime my family visits everyone flies into Bozeman, naturally. But we all know it is a touch more expensive. Here's my secret . . . I've always wanted my family to fly into Billings because those two hours in the car home to Bozeman I know will be on top of the list for the best two hours spent during our vacation together. We love to talk, laugh, car dance, make truckers pull that little thingy that makes the horn go off . . . and of course it was all of that for D and I.

Our week was quiet, yet complicated. Uneventful, yet life changing. She picked me up and dusted me off like a remote control, put me back down. She bathed her child, then mine, when all I could do was sit and think and stare at a piece of chipped paint on my wall for an easy hour. If my laundry were an event in the Olympics, I'd have a gold medal hanging around my neck, or better yet, hers. And when she wasn't doing those things, she was sitting across from me, staring me in the eyes, telling me that life is what it is, and that it was going to be okay.

And then she'd hug me, dry her own tears, and start a chicken-and-bisquits dinner.

The love that I feel for this woman has my eyes full and heavy, and no, it's not the pinot. Every morning I can't wait to hear from her, or text her myself, just to know what she's doing, so that I can wish I was doing it with her. I wish I could come around the corner, although dazed and confused, and see my sweet nephew crawling his soft, squishy, chubby-as-shit little legs across my hardwood floor. I wish I could glide into my kitchen in my slipper socks and see her cute little frame, beautiful hair, and just wait for the next phrase to come out of her mouth that was going to put me into a fit of laughter. The stomach-ache kind of laughter.

I don't have a high-resolution of this photo simply because one doesn't exist, but wanted to share with you anyway one of my favorite pictures of us, taken in 2001 or 2002. I was in desperate need of a root job, and she's as adorable as ever with her perfect, long, silky, black hair. And my, how I used to love the Michelob Light.

It's amazing how life changes and you lose one thing, but gain two or three others in the meantime. I am here to take it one day at a time from now on, because I truly have realized that I have absolutely. no. idea. what is going to happen tomorrow.

xoxo,
Mo