Sisters are Forever//Atlanta Days

I know we've chatted a dozen times about My Great Love for my sister, over coffee, in the midst of this space.

There are several reasons for that, but we'll narrow it down to two today:

1. She's awesome (and I love her more than all the drops in all the oceans).

2. The width and breadth of our history is so rich and ripe with heartache (etccc.) that no one else in the world fully understands the layers of our past or how they've come together to form the people we are today. Let's just say "It's complicated" and keep it at that.

Though we lived together all through university and graduated on the same spring night, the following years have found us in many different (and often opposite) corners of the world.

People, this is hard for the heart.

From D.C. to Thailand, from Chicago, Texas, Hawaii and beyond we've seen each other as much as humanly possible through the years and of course it's still not enough.

Thankfully, the past couple of years, we've taken a long weekend together in Atlanta in July to celebrate her birth. Catherine's arrival all those years ago was the very best thing that could have happened to me, though as an usurped older sibling, I had little idea just how much I would need her through the ensuing years.

So party in Atlanta it is.

I'm grateful for my sister-for the hard conversations and the heart conversations. I'm thankful for someone who has seen me in a myriad of seasons, who loved me when I was unlovable and who believed in me far more than I ever believed in myself.

I'm grateful to know someone so incredibly generous, hilarious, kind, thoughtful, giving, witty, talented and brilliant.

Catherine Elizabeth-you are a wonder. I'm proud of you, I adore you, I'm so happy I get to call you MY sister. 

Until we hug again.

xo.

That Track Life Bro: An Open Letter to the Girls Who Changed Everything

Darling Girls,

Today I said goodbye to you, left you in a tiny corner of New Zealand, and though this parting has long been looming, it came altogether too soon.

What makes me misty-eyed (or waterfalled-eyed, however you chose to define it), is that, while it's not forever goodbye, it's farewell to this season of doing life with you.

And I have loved these last 19 months with you all. I've loved seeing you learn and adventure, dream and create together; I've loved the family we've become and the tangled mess of simple and hard moments that have intertwined into a layering of life that has looked so special. 

When you came last April, I didn't know how much I'd care or how sweet this season with you would be. 

It has surpassed my highest hopes and so the ending feels rude, like someone barging in on a dinner party before the dessert.

It's the ending of so much-of family dinners on Wednesdays, of pizza/movie/cider Friday nights, of choc chip pancakes on Sunday mornings. While I recognize that this sounds as if eating is all we do together it is about so much more than that. It's the denouement of this two year journey-of working side by side, of teaching, of learning, of traveling to far-away places together.

You girls shine bright in my heart and mind for a myriad of reasons.

You are incredibly hard-working, servant-hearted, determined, convicted and inspiring. You are thoughtful, wise-beyond your years and oh-so-wonderful to know.

Know that I admire you, that I love you with my whole heart.

We are proud of you, of your journey, that you didn't give up. 

We are impressed with you and the way you live your lives.

And while this should make us feel old and grey, we love that you called us "mum" and "dad." You still feel like we're the same age though, right?!

All our love.

(Insert a thousand kisses and sappy thoughts here.)

L (+ J)