Getting Older and Emily’s Graduation

There comes a time of realization in everyone’s lives where you feel…well older.

I came to this realization over the weekend.

You see I will be turning 30 the first week of September and up until last weekend didn’t really think too much about it.

Last weekend we celebrated my sister Emily’s college graduation.

Yes. My little sister has earned a degree from West Georgia University and she is five years younger than me.

I’ve been thinking of different ways to celebrate 30 as birthday’s in our family are kinda a big deal.

My birthday is ideal as it usually falls around Labor Day giving me a long weekend to celebrate. I have been debating about going out of town, or celebrating at home or going to the ever crazy redneck party at Atlanta Motor Speedway as I’ve done in previous years. I was planning on a “girls” trip to Las Vegas, but even with the long weekend that will have to be postponed due to my new job and less time available to make the trip.

I have also been leaning toward going to Nashville, as I’ve never been there—or to a beach to just relax with a book.

No matter what I decide, I am getting older.

The moment I realized this was when I walked into Emily’s party and immediately felt like the “older out of town sister.”

I don’t think anyone ever actually said that, it was just a personal feeling.

My sister and I have not always been as close as we are now.

It took us years to get along, and we still take each other’s love and time together in small doses.

I tend to get that we don’t look alike, we act nothing alike, and that we must have at least one different parent.

We both have the same biological parents. We do. And one of my sister’s friends, who I’ve known my whole life, fiancée said to me Saturday “Wow, you two look just alike.”

The comment took us both by surprise. It took me a moment, and I realized that the older we got…the more we were going to look alike.

As for Emily, she is a pistol.

She is my polar opposite and although she has the heart of a giver, she is such a handful too.

I cannot express how proud I am of her in words. It seems to get me emotional. Graduating college was not the easiest for her, and I was there to listen to the ups, downs, and the good and the bad for the last several years.

I was there when she changed her major, needed money for bills, thought that a failed test was the end of the world—all of it.

I remember my college days too. Looking back to those days, they were wonderful. But I still had a bad test grade and times where I felt like giving up on college.

Luckily Emily and I both have a degree. We owe this to our Mom as she wouldn’t have it any other way.

She always told us to “have something to fall back on—a degree in something.”

We both have a degree and as Aunt Jenny likes to say “we’re all getting older.”

True. We are all getting older. I just don’t feel old. I can’t wait to see what my 30’s have in store, as my 20’s were pretty great! I want to wish my sister, Emily a prosperous future, with all of the love in my heart.