Happy Birthday Ashley

25 years ago I was a six year old only child. I had imaginary friends and sang to myself and a large audience of stuffed animals. Then my sister was born and I would not be alone again. When you are an older sibling it is different to think about the years that you spent without your younger sibling. I remember playing alone, thinking alone, and forming my core personality alone. Really by the time I was 6 I knew who I was and my ego was fully formed. Ashley coming into my life was like having someone to tell me when I was funny or to cheer me up when I was sad. And I was a part of her life from the day she was born. So I watched her develop her personality and when she was unsure she would look at me like "ok, aren't you supposed to make me laugh now?"

We separated when I was in college when she as in jr. high. She was without me for the first time of our life together. I wonder if it was like the way I felt when she hadn't been born yet? Like was it her time to wonder around as an only child? By the time we caught back up to an age that we could enjoy each other again we had become two different women, with similar traits. Ashley has a sharp and driven mind, she has a knack for fashion and design, and cooking. I am the dreaming mind, have a knack for writing, and floating from project to project.

But the more we get older it becomes clear that we are not all that different. That in fact, sometimes it feels we have a bond so close that we were born twins. And no matter what each of us feels the other knows that feeling too and we will sit with each other through it, until one of us feels better or knows how to move forward.

I feel so blessed to have Ashley in my life. And I wish her a very happy happy birthday full of new awareness and hope.