Me and my siblings. I ‘m the totally normal one in the cute maroon coat.

You love them, you hate them, it doesn’t change the fact that they are your blood. But it also doesn’t change the fact that you can get pretty frustrated with them at times, no matter how close you are. There are spells where you want to lash out, make it a little harder on your sibling, prevent their every happiness… you know what I mean.

My younger sister and I shared a room. We shared a room till I was 16. I’d like to say there are advantages to sharing a room, but there really are none when you’re three years apart. We didn’t have a secret language nor did we bond over boys. Our relationship was one born out of annoyance. She was my little sister. She annoyed the crap out of me. And there you go. Some of it was me, but most of it was her being a little sister.

And sometimes, she was not so little doing little sister things. I know for a fact she did them just to annoy the crap out of me. So before you go feeling all sorry for her because she was younger and didn’t know better – she always knew better. Today I share one of her more infamous incidents:

The room was finally mine. We were having some stupid argument over some random thing, I’m sure. In hindsight, they were always stupid arguments. I told her if she stepped foot in my room one more time, she was going to get it. So what did she do?

First she stared. I stared back – daring her to do what I could see she was silently threatening to do. Then she did it. It was her toes. She took the tip of her foot and toe touched the carpet at the threshold of my floor. She was by all definitions in my room. So I lunged.

She could hardly turn around fast enough to make a run. I caught her right as she began to flee and pushed her out of my room. So here’s the thing. I don’t really feel like I pushed her that hard. I truly believe that my tapping her on the back coupled with her forward momentum is really what did it.

She crashed head first into our parents’ bedroom door frame with a loud crack and then collapsed to the ground with a hard thud. That’s when I had that, “sibling went too far moment” even though it was COMPLETELY accidental. I had that flash where the fear of my parents’ wrath far outweighed the fear for my sister’s wellness. Don’t judge. I think we’ve all been there.

So I did what anyone else would do in my situation. I dragged her body back into my bedroom and closed the door. As she came to, I promised her everything a big sister promises when she’s desperate to buy silence: clothes, jewelry, cds, a welcome invitation into my room whenever she wanted for a whole week … And as always, it worked.

I consider all of our altercations interactions no-take-backs on the whole. If we hadn’t had those tiffs and spats or ridiculously violent aggravating encounters, we wouldn’t have grown into the individuals we are today.

This week I’d like you to take a minute and think about some of your more tortured moments with a sibling. And laugh. And feel good about it. And then submit it. I’ll be running a contest later this week – looking for the best sibling story out there. So be thinking!