Siblings

I was just commenting on a previous post and I started thinking about my sister and myself, and how different we are. For one thing, we're 13 years apart. I think not being born in the same decade has affected us in many ways.

Some of our differences include:

• Political affiliation/ideology. (She's a pretty conservative Republican, I'm a pretty liberal Democratic-leaning independent)
• Religion. (She is Protestant and goes to church nearly every Sunday. In fact, she drives quite a distance to attend church, when there are other churches of the same denomination closer to her. I am, well, agnostic. I consider myself Wiccan. Of all the religions I've tried in my life, this seems to be the best fit for me.)
• Choice of where to live. (Since she got married, she hasn't lived more than 10 miles from either our parents or her husband's parents. When I got married, I moved into town, about 25 miles away. I really dream of moving away, either out of state or out of country.)

It's sometimes hard for me to believe that we share the same genes. When I was talking about marrying my husband, my family called a meeting and she said that if I married him, we wouldn't have white children. My husband is basically European, by way of Argentina. His father's family comes from Italy, and his mother's family is from Spain. You've seen the photos of our son. Does he look non-white to you?

Don't get me wrong, I love my sister. We're family and nothing will change that. But we're not as close as we could be because of being at totally different places in our lives. Her oldest daughter is graduating from high school in less than a year. I'm trying to potty-train my son.