My sister and I were never close — until adulthood

My mother told me Hannah and I played parallel as little girls, and as a teenager I remember it exactly that way. We were night and day different: I woke early, she woke late; I went out with groups of friends, she had a couple of close friends; I was meticulously tidy, she was unabashedly messy.

We both liked Pride and Prejudice, but the Bennet sisters’ woven-tight dependence felt nothing like us. We went our separate ways in college and rarely contacted each other beyond occasional texts or brief weekend meetups. I moved to the UK to marry a Welsh man and later settled here to raise my family; as social media showed sisters who seemed like bosom friends, I felt desperately lonely and wished Hannah and I were closer, believing that daily confidences might fill the friendship void.

In my 30s, after several life events that nearly broke me, Hannah was consistently there. She checked in by text, came to visit from the US, and eventually moved to London for work three years ago.

United Kingdom, London

sister, sibling relationships, adulthood, loneliness, long distance, london, wales, social media, family, classic literature