Pure Greatness.

My baby sister, Ellie, turns 14 years old in 6 months.

Fourteen. I was in 8th grade when I was fourteen. When I think about the things I’ve seen and done when I was her age, I feel like telling Ellie: no, you’re still a kid, a silly kid, and you have to stay that way, stay as silly forever, please. And then I realized that this was meant to serve myself— to validate my existence as the elder sister, the one she ran to when she got into fights with our parents, or the one who helped her pick what to order in restaurants and help her with her homework.

Now, she gets straight A’s in her new school without much help from anyone, she knows what her favorite food is, and she knows how to fend for herself, sometimes so expertly that it amazes me how she is the same frail little girl I used to carry. She was fourteen long before she turned fourteen.

I miss being needed. I miss the soaring sense of achievement that comes with having taught her something, may it be a lesson in verbs or a lesson in how not to strangle your annoying backstabber of a classmate. Among my sisters, Ellie is like me the most, or I see myself in Ellie the most.