The Seemingly Incidental

So I sat at a computer for several hours this afternoon looking through photos and getting a massive headache. I'm trying to print pictures so I can do an album of this crazy thing I do called Bible Bowl. But I had over 2000 photos and I figured that was too many, so I was picking and choosing which ones I would keep and it was taking forever. The saddest part is that I was only doing three years worth of Bible Bowl pictures and I have been doing this for seven years. Right now I feel as though I will never finish this project.

Anyway, none of that is really the point. But as I was doing this my little sister was sitting next to me and we were laughing at shared memories and making new ones as we looked at old photos. It's amazing to me how the smallest moments can add up to make a beautiful friendship. Taking random pictures together, eating a bowl of ice cream together, singing together while doing the dishes. It's in these seemingly unimportant moments that love is born and nourished.

There are so many small things (some of them ridiculous) that I remember doing with my little sister. Like the day we ran around the yard with a camera. She held my hand and led me all over the place while my eyes were closed and my other hand was taking pictures. Those photos look very silly. Or when we recorded ourselves on my mp3 player. We sang, or we pretended to interview each other and we would laugh hysterically. The days when I would read aloud to her for hours on end (I think I may have enjoyed that more than she did. I was very pushy about getting to read to her). I remember the days when we would wrap ourselves in blankets as though they were gorgeous dresses and pretend we were princesses. Or when we pretended we were being baked in a pie to be eaten by giants. (I'm not sure if we were ever rescued...that game never had an ending) Those days when we would climb the cotton wood out back or play Barbies in the basement. All of these fun memories that bring a smile to my lips just thinking about them. That's part of what friendship is.

The other part of this beautiful relationship is those days when I am feeling down and I just want to be with my little sister because she is my comfort zone. We can always tell when one of us has had enough, of being teased, of eating, of being with people, whatever. Sometimes we can read each others' minds. And we're always ready to do whatever we can for each other. We laugh hard together and we hold each other when we cry. And the reason we enjoy the big moments together is because we've lived all the small ones side by side.