Growing up, my mom always said that I was innocent, and my dad always said I was inquisitive. In my grandma’s eyes, I will never be less than her sweet, little grandchild, and from my sister’s perspective, I will always be the younger sister that never grows up.

When my sister got her first car, all I could ever think about was how one day, I would be sitting in the driver’s seat. That day has officially passed, and to be completely honest with you, the feeling was more anticlimactic than I anticipated. 

When my sister was in high school, she would pick me up from school every day, head straight home, and start her homework right away. Due to my sister taking so many AP classes,  she was constantly studying, and with more work, came more stress, which started to make me really nervous. 

For so long, I was so excited to start high school because, to me, that finally meant that I reached that status of independence, and I would finally be an adult, but this couldn’t be farther from the truth. I still have to get my license, and although I’ve learned to be responsible, I find myself reliving my sister’s high school experience which takes away from that excitement of entering my last years of schooling. 

At first, the thought of your grades being tracked on a transcript used to scare me, but as I’ve adapted to the rigorous courses that I’ve taken in high school, it now just seems like a trivial problem that I almost pay little to no attention to because what matters to me isn’t the grade that I receive, but how much effort I put in. 

I notice that every time something happens to my sister, such as when she worked her first job or was accepted into college, I instantly want what she has, but then forget to realize that because she’s older, she will have more opportunities to do what she wants. 

When I first started driving, it was so exhilarating, and I felt accomplished for doing something that led me one step closer to adulthood. However, it didn’t make me feel “grown up,” only because my sister had already experienced it. 

Everything that I will get to do has already been done by my sister which sometimes makes me feel like I will never “grow up,” however, this doesn’t always strike me as a red flag. 

I am an introvert when it comes to anything in life, whether that be social gatherings, parties, or even school, so naturally, I tend to like working under others just because I find it very hard to make decisions on my own and sometimes depend on others to help me succeed. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I enjoy being the little sister. Although one day I will have to learn how to live on my own and pay my own taxes, it’s nice to know that I wasn’t the guinea pig of the family and didn’t have to be the first one to do things out of their comfort zone.