And Then There Was One

On a scale of pain from one to ten, I would say getting my braces tightened falls in as a six. 

You know that point in time when you go to the bottom of the pool thinking you can hold your breath forever but then you realize you obviously can’t… Well seven is what your feeling on the journey to the surface. 

Then I would say mountain biking in general is an eight. 

That terrible moment when you bite into a lemon and your face feels like it is getting compressed into a raison, that’s the gruesome nine.

Then there are the things that you are thinking about like breaking a bone or biting your tongue. Those make up the decimals between nine and ten. 

So what is ten? Well, I can answer that for you.

This week I have experienced a terrible thing. The life of an only child. 

SEEESTERS in 2002

A year and a half ago my oldest sister, Katy, graduated high school and is now in college at Middlebury in Vermont. It felt so weird for the first few months. Four is so different than five. Grabbing four forks for dinner instead of five. Having only two sides of the couch occupied at once. And the weirdest of all, four people actually fit on the chairlift all together. 

Obviously it was only two weeks that I had to live in misery, because Nicole was just out of town. However, in less than one year the nightmare will actually become reality. And I will be forced to live that way for two whole years with my sisters all the way on the other side of the country. 

SEEESTERS in 2013

Soon, I’ll only be grabbing three forks. And there will be awkward spaces on the couch. AND there will only be three people on the chairlift forcing us to sit with a random stranger picked up from the singl es line. It doesn’t get much worse than that. 

I am often told that I should consider myself lucky to be the youngest in the family. And I do. I have the two most incredible older sisters in the entire world and I am fortunate to follow in their footsteps. However, as Katy and Nicole travel to college I am the one that is going to be left behind to bear the life of an only child. No sisters to drive me everywhere. No sisters to coach me on how to get through high school. And the worst of all, no sisters to yell at me for stealing their clothes. It’s weird, but I will definitely miss Nicole’s face when she sees me strolling around town wearing HER shirt. 

Through it all, I do know that Katy, Nicole, and I will remain best friends. #BFFL’s! (That stands for “Best Friends For Life” just incase you modern day uneducated moms were wondering). 

I finally understand why Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström created Skype… It’s for all the kids like me in the world to stay connected with their totally awesome and stylish sisters. I love you guys. 

The day Nicole walks out the door to head to college I will have officially met the dreaded ten.