This week one of my sisters had a birthday of some numerical value. No, I’m not sure how old she is. Yes, I could easily just add five years to my own age. No, I’m not sure how old I am either. Listen, I’m the baby of the family. I’m not here to keep an accurate record of your age. I’m here to think you’re a decade younger than you are, until such a time as your estimated age seems implausible, even to me. (My mom, for instance, was 40 for two decades).

Whatever age either one of my sisters happens to be, I will have known and loved them my whole life, which is a very cool concept. I mean, I thought it was also cool that I’d had my cat, Cat, for half of my life (RIP), but this is probably (probably) cooler. We’ve had our ups and downs, and will continue to have them for the rest of our lives, per our contractual sister obligation. But over the span of an Entire Life, one learns a thing or two about sisters. Here are my thoughts, my wishes, and my heart’s truth (or something):

♥ Never question a sister’s love. Sometimes, sisters start actin’ up. You might think, I’m not sure this female relative of mine is very fond of me or would really care if I moved into the woods and disowned my family. But don’t get crazy. Your sister loves you as much as she loves herself, if not moreso. A love so strong it’s blinding. And it is for that reason that she’s yelling at you about folding dog-ears into the pages of her favorite books, or eating her cheese.

♥ Sisters are human people. In retrospect, this one seems really obvious, but when you’re growing up, it’s easy to assume that “sibling” is a different species than “human person,” and remain uncurious about the intricacies of their lives and the inner workings of their minds (insofar as these have nothing to do with you or will not yield any great advice for you or travel recommendations).

♥ Sisters are not just age-separated clones of you, or vice versa. Often they have quite different personalities, despite the fact that the two of you may look an awful lot like age-separated clones, which is completely a thing.

♥ Call your sister. If you’re anything like me, sometimes you talk to your mom for two hours ABOUT your family members, and it feels like basically the same as talking to those family members. As it turns out, your other family members don’t realize this, and don’t receive any residual “loved” feelings sloughing off of this conversation with your mom. So, don’t stop calling your mom, that would be suicide. But call your sister(s) and brother(s) sometimes, too.

♥ If you have an older sister, you probably owe her some babysitting time. Let’s just be honest that your older siblings 30% raised you, and you have no excuse not to change their babies’ diapers or watch Disney Junior with them. (I’m not saying I’ve done all these things, just that I have no excuse not to).

♥ Your sister should be one of your best friends. If they’re not, why not? What’s standing in the way of the person who’s known you all or a lot of your life, shares your memories and some of your personality traits (but not all of them, because of the clone thing), has seen you at your best and at your worst and lived to tell the tale, and is contractually obligated to love you, being one of your ride or dies? That was rhetorical. Call your sister!

♥ Sisters never stop having boy trouble (or girl trouble, depending).

♥ Sisters never stop growing up.

♥ Sisters need a stiff drink right now.

♥ Sisters float.

♥ Sisters are THE best.

PS: Stayed tuned for my companion piece “Brothers Are Aight” (kidding kidding kidding kidding).