p.s. i am the little sister she is referring to :)
". . .These parents knew the importance of family, the importance
of sibling unity. One wouldn’t think that sharing a room would make a big
difference but, I guarantee, it does.
Before I moved into my first apartment, I’d never once had
my own room. I’d never even had my own bed. For as long as I can remember I
have shared one with my younger sister and I have loved it. Allow me to correct
that. I have usually loved it but,
being human, there were times when I was younger, perhaps in elementary or
junior high, when I wanted my own room. There was a point at which I moved down
into the basement…for five minutes. Most of the time, however, having my sister
as my roommate was wonderful. There is something about
whispering late into the night that builds a relationship. There is something
about laughing and crying and supporting one another in the loneliest hours
that creates a dimension, an added love for that person. There’s something
about learning to share everything that you own whether you want to or not.
Something about learning how to be less spiteful and more forgiving. Something
about learning to compromise in order to improve your living situation that
forces you to grow as a person. There’s something about having less that
somehow offers more.
In a world where most have their own bedroom, their own
bathroom, their own computer, it’s refreshing to share. It’s gratifying to have
a friendship that has been built, not on gossip or even slumber parties, but on
learning to live with one another and learning to love it.
That’s why, now that we are both going to college and have
the chance to live apart, we are choosing to live together. We are, once again,
sharing a bedroom. Not because we have to but because we want to, because we
missed it.
Those young parents have something figured out, something
that my own parents figured out long ago.
Sharing a room is going to build that sisterhood in a way nothing else
ever could. Having too many children in a house far too small for everyone to
have their own bedroom or bathroom, well that was perhaps one of the greatest
things that my parents ever did for me."
and now a couple of the pictures to top it off. :)
