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Day’s Verse:

It is better to live in a corner of a roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman.

Prov. 21:9

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(Today’s verse is Ian’s favorite with regards to me!)



Well, I think it’s happened. I have begun to realize that my likkle Colleenie Beanie has grown up and is off at college (or else her wacky newsletter and web site are lying). Some things take big time adjusting, and I guarantee: having your younger sibling go off and do adult stuff by herself is definitely one of them. There is nothing that rams this home as distinctly as seeing pictures of her life away from home (as this one of her in fencing gear).

The transition for me to college felt perfectly natural: of course, this is my life. But watching somebody else go, and hearing about their experiences, and remembering what freshman year was like – the quick, close friendships that felt like they would last forever; the crazy nighttime escapades; the newness of it all; wanting to fit in and look like a college student; figuring out how to do classes and social life; making more friends in the first few months than you had your whole high school career – these things are strange to watch my sister go through.

I am adjusting, but Colleen will always be the person who made forts out of plywood and boards in the back yard with me. The person who swung for hours on the swingset with me as we made our horseback escape from evil people pursuing us. The person I played ‘Concentration Camp’ with in the mud in the back yard. The person I made a mom-trap with, using a cookbook for bait (in retrospect, Mom was probably happy not to have the cookbook). The person whose hair I cut at an early age. The person with whom I unrolled an entire roll of toilet paper around the house just to see how long it was. The person who, after we’d fought, would exchange paper airplanes down the hall bearing messages of how evil our parents were. Now I realize that there are too many good memories to write down – and the bad ones do not matter anymore. The years of fighting, squabbling, nasty commenting, scratching, even biting (it wasn’t my toothmarks in that arm!) mean little now that 2,916.44 miles and many unshared experiences separate us.

– KF –