hey, pretty girl.  you know perfectly well that i am talking to you.  don't second guess, it's you.  you deserve more than a blog post.  you deserve all the flowers in the world and a thousand words of poetry written after your shape--and i'll work on doing that for you throughout my lifetime--but right now, i really need to tell you how spectacularly spectacular you are.  you need to know that i care, and that i understand.  and i'm going about this in this way because if i told you face to face, i'd be harder to articulate exactly what it is i need to say.  this is just. for. you.  and, to anyone that might be reading, let the record show that i love my family.

you are enough.  you are more than enough.  you are everything.  everything.  the procrastinator, the perfectionist, granted.  whatever.  it doesn't matter.  i'm those things, too.  you are important.  you are valuable.  you are worth it.  you are beautiful.  you are beautiful.  you are beautiful.  you are loved.  like, oh my gosh!  i love you.  like crazy!  i think of you and i laugh, because you make me laugh because you're witty and hilarious.  i want to be with you.  i want to take you to lunch and spoil you because you're my little sister and i'm absolutely crazy about you.

don't get down, don't be so hard on yourself.  i look up to you.  yep.  i do.  you are so so brave.  for one, you survived childhood with me--must've been scary.  and then you chop off all your hair.  you're still the cutest human being i know.  you string together rad outfits i'd never be able to pull together.  and i laugh a little inside my head when you tell me that you would have no idea what to wear if it weren't for me, because i draw most of my inspiration from you.  you exude grace.  it may not be in every thing you do, but it doesn't have to be.  you're not perfect and i don't want you to be.  you'd be terribly boring if you were.  but the way you tilt your head when you smile, the way you tuck your hair carefully behind your ears, the way you hold your pencil, and the way you lean over the piano makes me grin because you're just right.  just. right.  at this point you're saying to yourself, that i'm just saying that.  wrong.  these words are from the most careful chamber of my heart.

i'm your classic under-achiever.  i allowed myself to sink into mediocrity and trained myself to avoid work.  i didn't go to school, i didn't write papers, i didn't read the books, i didn't study for the tests, i didn't socialize, i didn't work, i didn't practice the harp, i didn't care, i didn't spend time with our family, and i never apologized.  my nasty little need for perfection became a disorder.  not unless it's perfect was my little slogan, if you will.  i gradually lost confidence in myself as the undone work built up.  i started to dislike my personality because i recognized that i was dislikable.  i hogged all of mom and dad's attention.  they tried to sort me out and get me to do what everybody just does--normal things like waking up and going to school in the morning.  i was unbearable.  i allowed myself to become so engulfed in my self-made issues that i didn't treasure the most precious gift of taking care of you.

you are in no way dislikable, nor have you ever been near that point.  you have nice, good friends who adore you.  the little boys mostly want to play with you only.  you're a peacemaker.  you're a lover and a creator of music and beautiful things.  you're a light of faith and a flame of honesty in our home.  sometimes i steal glances at the way you live life and make a mental note to be a little bit more christ-like tomorrow.  but your words make me cry because my heart relates to them.  the desire to be perfect and as good as others and i expect myself to be.  i know that weight.  and i want to open up my arms like an umbrella and deflect every wretched feeling or thing in this world from ever scraping you.  and i can't help but feel that if i hadn't had been so selfish then, i could have sheltered you from feeling this way now.  as outrageously and unconditionally and sweetly as a big sister can, i love you.  my world would crash and tumble and tear and break if you ever were to be damaged in any way.

i don't have enough words for you and i can't tell you how frustrating that is.  but my darling, my girl, you're the top.  everyday you amaze me.  you ooze humanity and tenderness and i want to be like you.  i squeal every time i hear the hum of your voice coming from somewhere in the house.  i race to the place where you're cradling a ukelele in your arms, singing some pretty song you just picked up, and i sit outside the door and quietly listen.  then i close my eyes tight and pray to god to bless the hands that strum those strings, the pretty hands that made the flower arrangements next to the window.  but how can i ever express enough gratitude to equate to the beautiful, forgiving, deep, colorful, kind, dreaming sister i have been given?  i don't know that i'll ever get even with him.  but i sure am grateful that he knows me.  and i'm grateful that he knows you.  and i'm grateful that he paired us together.