Yesterday was my half birthday and soon I will reach my milestone birthday of 50. I’m not upset about this upcoming number and actually have been embracing it. I’m going to celebrate a bit early next week with my sisters and I’m so happy to get my dearest wish. I will have my sisters all to myself for 4 days! So often over the past 10 years I’ve had to share them with their spouses, children, and our parents. This time I get to rekindle our “sisters night” that we used to have each week when they were in college. The memories of those years are golden for me and I thought I’d reminisce a bit today.

I went off to college at Ohio State in 1992. At that time, my sisters were 7 and 9 years old (roughly) and I was 17. I married in 1997 and settled in Columbus and saw my sisters when I’d come home to visit or they would come up to visit me. I felt like I missed out on getting to know my sisters while they were in high school, but was thrilled when they each decided to go to Ohio State to pursue their own degrees. Since I was pretty settled in Columbus it was a great joy to get to visit with each of them regularly. Eventually they ended up sharing a house and we began our sisters night routine. Each week I would come over and we’d make dinner together, watch tv or a movie, and do crafts together. I got to know them as adults and was so grateful for it. I felt like I had a second chance to build a relationship with them. What a joy!

We took this time together to work on Christmas presents for our parents. We made an embroidered quilt where each of us created several squares and then we sewed them all together.

We made a painting with various memories of our relationship and life together.

Looking back through my photos of this time I’m amazed that I have so few pictures of our time together. The days of taking selfies together and all that had not quite made it’s way into our habits. During those years, I divorced and had a bit of a turbulent time in my life. But there were some good things that anchored me and that was my family. Without them, I don’t know how I could have made it through those difficult years.

I did find this photo from 2004 that captures a moment of cooking together. I’m not sure what we were making, but with the orange juice on the counter, I suspect it was pancakes or something similar.

I will always treasure those sisters night activities. We didn’t do anything terribly exciting or anything, but it was special all the same. Now I am lucky to get together once a month with my sister who lives here in Columbus. And twice a year with my other sister is not nearly enough. I’ll embrace these next few days with my sisters and appreciate every banal moment. After all, just being with them is special.