My grandmother loved me.

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Sometime in high school, I remember laying in bed with my then eight or nine-year-old sister lamenting about petty drama. I was complaining about something insignificant, yet my sister’s response in that moment wasn’t to poke fun at my feelings. At eight years old, Michelle had offered a really grown up response, actually. What those specific words were, I can’t recall, but what I can remember from this tiny blip from our childhood is the way she made me feel: heard, but challenged. She had posed a question offering a different perspective, and my first thought was, “Sorry, aren’t you like, eight?” followed by, “Actually, I hadn’t thought about it like that.”

Another memorable exchange I hold fondly from our upbringing is me randomly exclaiming, “I love sleep! Don’t you?” to which my eleven? or twelve-year-old sister responded, “Yeah, but it makes me feel so disconnected from the world.”

Girl, what?

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