10 Struggles of Having a Sister Who Lives Far Away

Sisters. You hated living with 'em as kids, now it's hard to live away from 'em as grown ass women.

My most vivid memories of my younger sister growing up include slamming the door on her when my friends were over (followed by her pushing angry notes under the door in response), tripping her in the hall on the way to brush our teeth at night, and kicking each other under the table at most family dinners. If you have a sister, you know it's a magical, magical love-hate relationship.

But now that we're older, slightly wiser, and don't share a bathroom, there's much more love and hardly any emotional or physical warfare. In fact, my sister moved away (she's only an hour plane ride from me, but still) and I actually miss her a ton. For that, I guess I owe my mom an apology for all of those years I didn't believe that my little sister could EVER be my best friend. Because she is.

And now that we've been doing this long-distance sister thing a while, here are a few of the struggles that come with not getting to see your blood BFF all the time.

You annoy everyone around you because you're constantly texting your sister.

Just because you live far apart doesn't mean you stop sharing every. single. detail of your day with her. Thank goodness for unlimited data, that's for sure. And apologies to your respective significant others who are constantly playing second fiddle to a hilarious sister text.

You get unnecessarily annoyed when she forgets to tell you things.

Even if you're incessantly texting and chatting on the phone on your way home from work, there's inevitably things you forget to tell each other. And when they come up later, you tend to get super annoyed that she forgot to mention that she tried a new flavor of ice cream, or she got a haircut, or she bought a new shirt. Sisters need to know these things!

You have to FaceTime to discuss outfits.

Practically the only person in the world you can count on for honest outfit advice is your sister. She'll shoot you straight (even when it hurts) and she knows your style and high-heel pain tolerance level better than anyone. So, you have to get creative and resort to awkward FaceTime fashion shows whenever an important event comes up.

I just went on a trip to Paris and spent a dizzying hour with her holding up outfits to my cell phone so she could help me pack. SO inconvenient, but highly necessary.

You get really sad when she's sad and you can't give her a hug.

It sucks when your sister is enjoying an epic meal without you (and proceeds to text you 53 pictures of it), but the worst is when you get that hysterical phone call from her and can only offer words of encouragement — instead of a giant hug and shoulder to cry on.

You're constantly worried that something's wrong if you haven't heard back from her.

Nothing like living in different states to make you think she's driven her car off a cliff or been kidnapped or something equally insane if she hasn't written back in over 20 minutes. If you haven't heard from her by 9am every morning this is also worrisome. This usually leads to you calling your mom to see if she's talked to your sister. If not, you resort to Facebook messaging all of her local friends to see what's going on. Approximately 100% of the time she was just in the shower or fell asleep early or went hiking without cell phone service. But the fact that she didn't alert you about any of those scenarios in the first place is plain rude and you've asked her to work on her communication skills, clearly.

You have to save all of your money to go visit her.

Instead of spending your money together on happy hours and shopping trips in the same city, long-distance sisters are constantly saving up for plane flights/road trips just so they can visit each other and truly catch up over coffee dates and couch time.

You don't know any of her new friends.

When you lived in the same place, you, at the very least, knew all of her friends and sometimes even shared friends. Then she moves away and makes new friends and you resort to Facebook stalking the new gals to see who she's spending time with. You're always slightly jealous that they get to go to dinner all the time or just drop by on a random Tuesday night.

You don't know the new guy she's dating.

Luckily my sister moved with her boyfriend (now fiancé) so I didn't have to deal with this one, but I couldn't imagine what it would be like for her to begin dating someone in a new city. That would be one of the times you put a plane flight on your credit card and hoped for the best, because there's no way she could get serious with someone without your approval. No freaking way.

You want the holidays to come even faster.

If you're lucky to have a sister who lives close enough to come home for the holidays, then you want those days to come even faster each year. Apparently flying back home for Valentine's Day is not a thing, so I guess I'll have to wait until St. Patrick's Day to see my sister. Or something. She's got to come home for Extraterrestrial Abduction Day (which is apparently March 20 each year), at the very least.

You realize that you're always going to be best friends and distance doesn't matter.

Though living in different places is entirely inconvenient for your sanity and your social life, enduring a long-distance sisterhood proves that no matter where you are, you'll always have an incredible bond. Even if you're in different times zones, even if you're in different countries, even if you never live in the same city again, sisters are forever. And you learn to be eternally grateful for the true genius who invented text messages.