This Kid I Know: Vicky

Don’t forget, peeps, I only write these for people who have requested them. If you were being sarcastic…sucks.

Vicky isn’t just some kid I know. She is the best kid I know. She has been with me the entirety of her existence. I love being her big sister, and this Thought Catalog article knows exactly what’s going on.

If you didn’t know, I’m 18, a college freshman, and my sister, a high school sophomore, is turning 16 today.

She’s always been super sporty her whole life, playing tennis, lacrosse, running track and cross-country, and dancing ballet, while I’ve been pretty sedentary my whole life.

But, like me, she’s always enjoyed reading, and I remember that we would spend whole days when we were young just sitting on a couch, reading our books in silence. 

When Nickelodeon had an Avatar: The Last Airbender marathon over Christmas Break one winter, we sat in front of our TV for HOURS at a time, and since TVs back then didn’t have pause functions, we’d wait until the commercial breaks to make ourselves cups of hot chocolate (often having more than six every day) and sprint to the bathroom.

My sister is the best person I’ve ever met. She hates to disappoint or inconvenience people, and she’s also super awkward sometimes. She thinks I’m a freak, and she takes forever to order food at restaurants. She tells pointless stories, and she’s the youngest out of the four of us (my sister and I, and our two cousins that are pretty much siblings). When she graduates, we will have put four kids through the same high school.

She hates boats and going on vacation in general.

We look very alike, or so I’m told. We walk alike too; both of us are slightly duck footed. We sound alike, so that whenever I answer the phone, the other person always asks which one I am.

What are sisters? Vicky is the one person around whom I feel completely comfortable being myself. Sisters basically don’t have a say in who their best friends are, so you know they’re not a flight risk.

When she was a toddler, I would bully her. She turned from that crying creature to an adorable elementary school student with tiny little teeth, to an angsty, vegetarian in middle school, to a questionably mature high schooler.

It pains me to watch my own sister grow up, lose innocence, and fall prey to peer pressure and social norms, though these things are likely inevitable, and people have to grow up some time or another.

It’s just…I’m two and a half years older than her, but she’s taller than me. We share clothes and shoes.

In our old house, we used to share a bathroom. That was quite an experience, though I only recently realized it. We would bicker about who got to shower first, and we woke each other up in the middle of the night when one of us peed.

These days, we have separate bathrooms. I kind of miss sharing one.

My mom and her sister (my aunt) are really close. Since her family lives in Atlanta, we visit them often and have dinner, and they share secrets and watch Chinese dramas with each other. Whenever I see them interact, I picture my sister and I all grown up, with kids of our own. I wonder…how close will we be? Where will we live? Will we get along?

College signals the end of my childhood, and my sister is now nearing the end of hers. I am incredibly sad that there will likely be no more Avatar marathons or silent reading sessions.

Today is her birthday, and I’m spending the whole day driving up to college with my parents. You never know what you have until you’re driving away from it with a car packed full of your shit.