My Sister

Ugh, where do I start? If you have a sister, I'm sure you can identify... if not, you're going to be glad and jealous all at once. Up until the age of maybe 12, my sister and I were BEST friends. We played together always and didn't wear the same size clothes. Something happened along the way (I was jealous of her in every single way) and it tore us apart. I was mean to her and embarrassed her in front of family and friends and really did just about all I could to make her life hell... not all of the time... but a lot of it. We had always shared a room and a bed... We fought over who would have to turn the light off at night and sometimes it just stayed on all night long.

Skip forward a couple years. When I turned 16 we were back to being pretty close. Mostly the same friends, boyfriends who were best friends. We were always together. We also always fought. We were now wearing the same size shirts, not jeans... I am only about 6 inches taller than she is. "My shirts" were off limits. She would wear them and always get food on them. "Hers" were also off limits. I always left a "smell" on them. She has always been weird about smells other than her own. But I'm not going to lie, I am pretty sure I had an overactive sweating problem as a teen.

Now that we are all grown and out of college and I have a family of my own, I appreciate her so much more. I want her involved in all of my family stuff like watching my babies grow and just being my best friend. I wanted her to get married and start having babies when she was getting ready to graduate from college. But she is doing what she has always wanted to, just like I am. All I have ever wanted was a family to love and take care of like my mom did for me. Not Lindsey. She has always wanted to do something "amazing." It took her a while to figure out what that amazing thing was, but she found it.

Lindsey left on January 2nd to India. She will be gone for 11 months and visit 11 different countries. In just a couple of days she will be in Nepal. The mission group she is with is called the World Race. Most people sign up for this with a year or so to prepare. Lindsey was accepted with only 4 months to raise all of the money she needed for it. The amount was $15,000 and she raised all but about $2k in that short amount of time. The rest people are donating over the course of her trip. She is really doing so much in the lives of others and they are also doing so much for her. Her link is http://lindseygay.theworldrace.org/. And I'm not going to lie, I cry every time I think about how far away she is or the fact that I can't just pick up the phone and tell her to get on Skype. But I am so thankful for the person she is!