The Story of the Sunflower Girl

She came into the world on September 1, 2000. My brand new baby sister. I was 3 so I don't remember but from what I was told, I loved her. I even tried to name her Cinderella Annie-Pooh Enderlein. My brand new baby sister.

Growing up was fun. She was just as much of a pain in my ass as I was for her. We had fun times where we used to play pretend. We would play with our blocks and build "towns" that consisted of buildings and walls. We would gather up our little trinkets whether it be horses, barbies, or little lizards (one of her favorites). We would give them all names, roles, and of course, tons of drama while we pretended to socialize our play things. I would play for maybe 30 minutes and end up getting bored with the game. Tyler, of course being 3 years younger than me, didn't understand. She still wanted to play. I would then get annoyed with why she was all over me and grew angry with her for asking me to keep playing. I would get mad and storm out of the room.

"Daaaaad! Tyler won't leave me alone!" I would whine to him.

"She's young, Taylor. She doesn't understand you don't like to play anymore," my dad would assure me.

I was always mildly annoyed with my little sister. Up until about my Junior year in high school was when I started paying any attention to her. She ended up being one of the popular girls in school whereas I was one of the losers. She was beautiful, funny, and did well in her classes. She was especially funny. She was a goofball. I started looking up to her. I wanted to be her friend. I wanted her to like me. During my senior year, my sister started high school as a freshman. I always hung out with her and her friends. I always knew I annoyed them but they were all I had. I just wanted to be around Tyler.

A few years down the road, we're both out of high school, we're both finding out who we are in the world. We are having so much fun. We have similar cars, we both smoke weed, we just had fun. I remember our best nights were getting in either her cruiser or mine and parking atop the parking garage downtown and smoking out of some giant bong we had at the time. We would be so high we would just laugh and laugh and laugh. We would then proceed to drive to In n Out, take our In n Out to the top of the parking garage to eat it, smoke some more, and then drive back to In n Out to get more food. You could say the munchies were definitely real.

Tyler ended up getting a boyfriend, Markie, who for the most part I liked. We had fun adventures with him too. If you can't tell yet, we really enjoyed smoking. We then, now with Markie in tow, would get in one of our cars, go park somewhere and smoke, and go for a drive. Always laughing our asses off at probably nothing. We had fun nontheless. As long as Tyler was happy, I was happy. Or so I thought.

I always felt like I was in competition with Markie. He would want Tyler's attention and so would I. I mean, who wouldn't? I became angry at Markie, like it was his fault my sister wasn't home all the time and it was his fault she was always with him. I wanted to see her too. I've held onto this grudge for just about as long as they've been together, two years give or take. Markie and she have fought like any couple does and I'm always there for her when she needs someone, seeming like I'm trying to make it okay. Secretly, I've always wanted them to break up, always hoping he would slip up again and she would finally be tired of it and leave him.

I am now learning about just how selfish that is of me. How selfish can one person be that they wish they're best friend's boyfriend would do terrible things just so she would leave him?! I am ashamed to have even thought something like that. I want my sister to be happy and well cared for. I want my sister to have someone that cares about her just as much as I do, someone who is going to always put a smile on her face and never let her down. God only knows I've only done half that. I am ashamed writing this to admit I've thought these things and wished her boyfriend would just disappear. I should be wishing that instead of disappearing, that he grows up to be the man my sister has dreamed of. I should be wishing that he takes her places she has only dreamt of going. Because that's life, isn't it? You grow up, meet a guy you love, and fly the coop. I don't know why I thought we would always be together forever. I guess because she's my best friend, the only person that has ever been there for me even when I fucked up really bad.

My first thought when she told me she was moving to Oregon was, "How could you leave me?" That selfish thought again, me, me, me. It's always about me. How could she leave me? Her best friend who she's known for 18 years. Me. How could he take her from me? All of this wasn't fair. Those were my first thoughts.

After crying for a few hours while trying to get ready for school, I sought out my dad. My sister and my dad were always the people I turned to when I was upset. I told him I didn't understand. She can't leave us. My dad put it into perspective for me. He said,

"Grace. You can't think like that. This is her life. This isn't yours. This is what she was meant to do. A parent's job is to teach a child how to be on its own and once it's ready to leave and be a person in the world, we feel like we've done our job right. Tyler is ready. You need to let her go."

My dad said some more things that made me realize this is life. This is how it is supposed to be. I need to put aside my selfish thoughts and be happy for my sister. She has grown up into such a beautiful, strong, successful young lady and I AM proud of her. She is going to do so well in the world wherever she goes. and I know for a fact she is most definitely going to touch others' lives how she has touched mine.

This is the end of my story of the sunflower I call Tyler. This is me releasing my selfish thoughts

This is me letting her go.

My sunflower girl.