One of the hardest things about life is staying positive. At least that’s what I think. When life gets me down, I have a hard time looking at the glass half full, seeing the cloud with a silver lining. I’m the kind of person who sees the glass half empty, and the grass is always greener on the other side. I think everyone has these thoughts every once and a while but I especially do. I guess you could say I’m a very, very negative person. I don’t try to be it just comes more naturally to me. It’s kind of how I grew up. Not that my parents tried to make me a pessimist, it’s just when experiences like this happened to me I automatically react by blocking it out and making sure I never feel those feelings again. So I guess you could sum me up in one sentence: overly protective, ridiculously defensive, a over enthusiastic realist, and very untrusting.

Well as you can guess this story isn’t really about me becoming more cynical. No it’s about me improving, becoming more hopeful and trusting. Being able to let go of my feelings a little bit more. So this is about one person who has tried my patience and my happiness almost more than anyone else.

My darling, sweet, caring, older sister. It’s not that I don’t love her, it’s just that we have never gotten along. We have almost the same exact personalities. She’s stubborn, so am I. She doesn’t let people talk bad about her friends or herself, and she has very strong opinions on things. Well guess who else does? That’s right, me. Now here’s where the problem comes in in this situation; we like almost the exact opposite things. She’s a cheerleader, I’m a soccer player. She can’t leave the house without make-up, I hardly wear any. You can see the dilemma. It was fight after fight after fight. When I was little I would cry because of all the fighting but as I got older I didn’t like that feeling of her having control over me so I eventually blocked out those feelings and sooner than later my older sister.

Now obviously you’re all thinking, this is a horrible story, and yes I agree this first part is, but it gets better about now. I had one very life changing experience with my sister that changed my whole point of view on her.

My older sister was outside of my friend’s house honking at me to get out to the car. As I got out to the car she was about to start yelling at me then she saw that I was balling and could barely talk. She looked over at me and asked me what was wrong. Now usually I would have told her to back off and mind her own business but in just one moment of weakness I told her everything. I told her how my whole devastating night. My night involved two of my best friends deciding to hate me then trying to get my other best friend to hate me also. She just sat and listened. Don’t worry I worked things out with all three of them but that’s not the point. The point is that after I finished crying out everything in me, she told me everything was fine. She told me she had been through the same things with her friends and that I just needed to give it time. She reassured me that if they weren’t going to love me for who I was then they weren’t worth my time.

After that night my whole point of view changed on life. I had thought of my older sister as a demon sent to torture me and make my life harder, but in that one car ride where I had no one else to turn to she was there for me. She helped me and comforted me in a way I don’t think anyone else could have done. And I realized that night that one of the big reasons me and my sister hated each other so much is because we never gave each other the opportunity to like each other. We blocked each other out because we thought it would never change and we would always be enemies. Were still different, but definitely more accepting. That one horrible night gave me one of the best presents ever; a friendship with my sister. It taught me that just because one bad thing happens, don’t mean you need to block and prepare for it the rest of your life. You should always look at things with an open mind, with a positive attitude. If you look at the glass full instead of half empty, it’s amazing what miracles can become reality.